Released October 12, 2018
3.5 / 10
Favorites
Insecurities
Least favorites
No One, Never Let Me Go, Won't Say No, Rollin'
[Review of the deluxe edition]
After the resounding UK commercial success that was her ubiquitous debut, Jess Glynne came back with an all-too-predictable sophomore album. The singer is not known for being a charismatic beast or having an outrageous personality: the success of her early work comes from the music itself, and how on the pulse it was with contemporary trends. The second installment of her discography follows the same formula (if something isn't broken, why fix it?), filled with a mix of tropical house synths and backing choirs that meet the beats head on. This blending of soul and R&B influences with dance-pop has led to a string of number 1s for Jess, giving her little incentive to innovate - it should be interesting to keep an eye on how her music evolves as the mainstream's attention is channeled into other avenues with time. Her music is very (too?) relatable without going into depth about pretty much anything. Bring water as you embark on "Always In Between" because the lyrical desert is a tough one to get through. After seventeen track deluxe edition, I still don't have the slightest idea of who Jess is: neither the composition or the lyrical content hints at something going beyond common tropes and messages too universal for their own good. You'll find something distinctive in her voice, rich in tone and with a vibrato she's not afraid to use - ok, she uses it way too much. Attempts to write smash hits come one after the other, sourly lacking in the ability to evoke real feeling and deprived of real spirit. In the end, by playing it safe Jess plays herself. Jess sounds stuck on the same quest to re-create the exact same radio hits she's previously crafted, re-packaging and wrapping them with different paper and bows so they'll be received like brand new presents. It feels almost deceptive as the introductory track (Intro) suggests we're in for a totally new ride: "I'm writing on a different page / I'm riding on a different wave". To be fair, she never said the page came from a different book or the wave from a different shore. The choir compliments her voice nicely although her vocals are a bit overbearing - I blame production for this. 123 sounds like it's trying to re-capture the success Justin Bieber had with some earlier singles. She goes through a weird metaphor on love equating currency and acts as a love bank, giving out mortgage loans and greedily collecting interest. This time around, the backing vocals cheapen the song, working against the swinging horns. The addition of the trap beats in places is inexplicable, further not helped by the absence of any strong melodic line. This all sounds celebratory but I'm unsure exactly what there is to celebrate. Won't Say No's lyrics could have been written by a ten year old. It describes a dumbed down version of unconditional love. The pre-chorus builds up pretty nicely; unfortunately it leads into an eye-rolling generic groove of a chorus. This track - like several others - suffers from a mismatch between the beat pattern and the general melody. One Touch continues the search for the next number 1, begging to be played in arenas with flame throwers spewing fire throughout and unabashedly asking people to clap along. Nonetheless, one track that stands out on the record as not begging radio plays is the deluxe edition addition Million Reasons. The track ticks to an electro-pop dancehall-infused mood. Unfortunately it doesn't sound like it knows what to do with itself, starting with a languorous groove, gradually augmented by rotating synth before growing more busy still and finally relinquishing control as it morphs into a strange Frankenstein experiment - a change it doesn't really recover from, as the strange unwarranted sound effects creep back several time after. A good part of the album shares vague tales of daily struggle with self-love to highlight the need for it. The intent is admirable, the execution is all but. In No One Jess sounds co-dependent, sending out conflicting messages of needing outside validation and love to be whole - as flawed as one might think her arguments are, she sounds very human when she says "I can't do this on my own" - and counts on people knowing exactly where she comes from. She demonstrates her unfortunate tendency to go full-on X Factor with her vocals. Runs, riffs, ad-libs, she can do them all, and more importantly, she makes sure the listener knows how good she is. It's hard to empathize when the song feels more like a talent showcase than a heartfelt piece of music. The music basks in country undertones, flaunting a kind of electro-pop very derivative of the likes of the late Avicii. The chorus is insufferable, the hand clapping is annoying, the strings are tacky, the list goes on.. Thursday tackles everyday insecurities, admitting the need for support ("You know sometimes I feel lonely / Could do with the company") while advocating independence ("I don't need a man"). Emotions flow more freely here, still putting her voice at the forefront of the tune - but this time, scaling back on the acrobatics. She loses a bit of the emotional potency as she can't help a final crescendo the track could have done without. Never Let Me Go is a puzzler. Jess begs for a lover to stay to an array of (daring?) stylistic choices. It starts off with strong synths and then abruptly transforms into a verse right out of Rihanna's "A Girl Like Me", then back into the synth pop hymn announced by the first few seconds. And it took five writers to come up with lines like "won't you carry me home?", "tell me that the grass is never greener", "like my body's out of control"... The track desperately needs a decent remix to turn it into something somewhat digestible - as of now, part of it tries to be a tune you'd listen on a road trip while the rest seems written for the clubs. In a sense Never Let Me Go is original in its attempt to combine two disparate templates - that have no business coming up together. Though the templates themselves are the epitome of genericity in their respective lanes... Onto the next: Broken insists on the necessity of a strong support system. The music resonates as if played in a big empty space but the majesty is broken by the domineering beat. This and the overuse of ad-libs chips away at the emotional conduit between Jess and the listener. The choir's attempt to soulify the track is unfortunately not sufficient to hold it together. However, if there's one track to take away from the (deluxe version of the) record, it has to be Insecurities. It opens with a hard-hitting verse ("I've stretched myself too thin / Tried to be everything / Don't know how to love / I care way too much") and develops into the demo the album sorely needed. Production is almost inexistent: it sounds like a raw live take, foregoing the unnecessary overlay of beats and electronic touches other tracks went through. I even caught myself expecting a beat or percussions to come in with the second verse only to be taken by surprise when they didn't. Her vocals are as good as they've ever sounded and I love the addition of another short messy recording at the end of the bridge. It is a shame that Insecurities is more of an outlier than anything on "Always In Between" - even more of a shame that it only appears on the deluxe edition. Though Jess spends considerable time and energy going through the daily grind while keeping the darkness at bay she sometimes flips the script and presents her shoulder for the listener to lean on. She finds extra love within her to share with others in I'll Be There - whereas she was deploring not finding love on the previous track of the record. The narrative is simple enough: 'I've been there, I know how it can be and I can help you get through whatever you're going through' in a nutshell. The track is decent, enhanced by looped hollow chimes and soft percussions. She still does a bit much with vocals and the super-imposed beat that starts on the second verse feels out of place - the beat itself is savage nonetheless. Whoever green-lighted the yodel-adjacent chorus was in a mischievous mood. The bridge then dabbles in tropical house to check the right boxes to get the coveted number 1 spot - and that it did. All I Am is a demonstration of extreme empathy ("all I know and all I am is you") and mutual support. The bass line the track opens with is intriguing but she goes into tropical electro pop mode on the chorus and loses flair. The verses are solid - I mean again, that bass line is damn fine. Nevermind shows another side of the same relationships; this time Jess gets frustrated as she accepts her partner's flaws but hits a wall when it doesn't feel reciprocated. This track is a strange one for me: it blends in great and abhorrent musical moments. On the plus side, lyrics sound a bit more mature while still very straightforward ("I never minded when you heart turned dark / With every fight I loved you just as hard") and the gyrating synths on the chorus are an exciting touch. On the other side, the chorus leads into a Chainsmokers-style transition that is hard to get on board with and the ever-present incongruous beat patterns play against the melodies. By personal enjoyment standards and how innovative/exciting the record is, "Always In Between" is fairly disappointing. Perhaps one should consider that breaking molds and creating leading-edge music is not at the top of every artist's agenda. If Jess set out to put out the most tame, vapid and widely popular music, she succeeded and has the streaming and sales receipts to show for it. Let's hope that at some point, collecting royalty cheques will not be the priority for established artists in the mainstream. I want more adventure and more risk from Jess. It can start with leveraging the unequivocal access top 40 artists like her have to great minds and fellow artists to create what dreams are made of.
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