grae - Moses Sumney: Review
is an Asheville, North Carolina based R&B singer who broke out with his 2017 debut album Aromanticism, grae follows two EP's Sumney released over the last two years and the first half of the album was released back in February.
Review By Lavender:
I thought Moses Sumney's debut album Aromanticism was pretty good and I regret missing out on doing a proper full review of it even though the album ultimately found itself on my year end list. The moment I really fell for Sumney's music was on his 2018 Black In Deep Red, 2014 EP where he fused R&B with captivating spoken word passages and tribal percussion to make for one of my favorite EP's all year. I waited on the first half of grae because I wanted to wait and hear the record in its entirety and now that it is here I see all the things that make Moses Sumney's sound so compelling here, but at 65 minutes the album comes with some excess.
The excess parts of the record isn't the short tracks and interludes like with so many other records of its kind. The various spoken word pieces that appear across the record are normally pretty good and hold the key to unlocking many of the records themes. The singles from the record make up a handful of its best tracks. Cut Me is a stark and brooding R&B track with some delicate horns backing the always excellent singing. The song is a touch slow developing and doesn't have a conventional climax but I still enjoy it quite a bit. Virile was a song released last year that made my singles of the year list and I still enjoy it quite a bit with its pounding dense R&B rhythms and intoxicating lead vocal performance making it one of the best tracks here. Me In 20 Years is a track I loved as a single and it is still one of my favorite tracks here on the record. The pulsating beat is encapsulating and Moses brings his A-Game falsetto on the track that seeps it in emotion in an incredibly compelling way. Bless Me was the last single and it was also great. It has a changing and evolving instrumental palette that mirrors the different kind of songs across the record and wraps up a lot of the albums sonic qualities nicely.
The only song I didn't love was last years Polly a true to form ballad tune with an instrumental that is stripped back even further than much of what else is here. I think the song just goes a little bit too far and sucks out some of the tracks energy, a problem that pops up on a few of the other longer tracks. Gagarin is the first of these and I don't really get the appeal of the track. The obscured vocals don't do much for me and the wailing squelching never really add up to anything. The song has a last minute explosion of sound paired with a D'Angelo like performance from Moses but even that moment doesn't last that long. Two Dogs has some lyrical content that really grabs me but the instrumental here may be my least favorite on the record. It makes the instrumental passages drag big time between the verses and the entire song feels so underwritten with all that time being taken up by kind of vapid instrumentation. The biggest offender in this category is Lucky Me a track that drags on well past it becomes boring. If the song had been two minutes of planky keys and some sung passages that sound like everything else here it would have been tolerable but the track drags on with practically no instrumental development.
On the better side of the record we have In Bloom a tight and air R&B track that sounds great even though it could maybe use a little bit more something here or there. Colouour is a song that grew on me a lot and while I still don't love the instrumental build-up the color themed song hat follows is actually really satisfying in its intimate and rumbling delivery. Neither/Nor does have some moments that drag out but the warm strings are absolutely buttery on the ears and Moses lends some always great vocals to the track. Bystanders is a big highlight and one of my favorite of the slower cuts. Moses delivers an incredibly expressive almost fragile vocal performance to the small textures and details that line the instrumental and make for a big highlight. Finally Keep Me Alive is another ballad type track with gorgeous vocals and impactful strings but the track has some absolutely beautiful songwriting at its core too.
grae is a record that displays a ton of talent and has numerous highlights that will stand out as some of the best genre bending R&B tunes you'll hear this year. The issues I have with the record come mainly when the production or songwriting don't let the beautiful elements shine through, or when tracks are so indulgent that they try to spread out their gimmick for longer than it is worth. Moses is clearly talented and working with some talented people but at 65 minutes I have to wish that this record was whittled down to the gems just a bit more, because when the record is good its very good. 7/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
This cover is great! While just being a very eye catching image in and of itself the line of action from the waterfall onto the rock keeps your eye moving. Sumney's body which seems to almost camouflage into it the surroundings makes you look back at it and look for parts that you might have missed. I think there could've been an addition of some small text in the bottom corners to give it some extra iconography but overall I'm very drawn to this cover. 8/10
For more R&B check out my review of Thundercat's It Is What It Is here
