Rock's mostly dead, and we spent a decade or so coming to terms, thrashing around in the ashes. And in its place we've gone post-performance, deep into pure production, tone removed from instruments, the whole of modern music diving into the crannies of 90's experimentalism and beyond.
And it's infecting All The Music. This is an R&B album, with all that sexy crooning, that emphasis on vocal and emotion. But the real star is the production, and this has no lingering connection to motown etc, this is surging pulses beyond note, rhythms beyond beat, abstract background that hooks into hearts in roundabout longways we're not used to defending against, sweeping those voices up against themselves.
And it hits on another modern trend, this vulnerability, this abandonment of swagger - weak's the new strong, nicking the 90s' best tricks yet again. This is the dark side of sex, made so unsexy it goes around the horn X times and unasks the question.
Mysterious, wildly modern, piquingly difficult, maybe important 3.5/5
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