Calliope Music Review of the Week
Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!
U.K. Dance-Pop Star, Jessie Ware Extravasates Pleasure in this Disco and Funk Fueled Frolic of Love and Pop.
Palatial Disco production accords rosy displays of passion and satisfaction. Grand horns, jouncing bass lines, and shaking synth buttress robust vocals persisting for extravagant hedonism. Ware's vehement hooks along with magisterial dance grooves implore an irresistible need to move in rollick fashion.
Three years removed from the seminal, What's Your Pleasure?, Jessie Ware continues her quest in pleasure-driven Dance-Pop. This time, Ware ups the ante with faster, louder and more Funk inspired Pop tunes. Where her previous album utilized synth beats and softer drama-filled ballads, That! Feels Good! leans in on the climax, boisterous in its forceful choruses and elevated instrumentation.
Midi drums replicate a few different styles, including a six-piece Funk drum set, exuberant synth kick measures, and clubbable bongo beats. Each variety of drums is met with luscious bass movements, springy during quicker tempos and slackened in the slower tracks. Brawny piano also joins the party, becoming an anchor for fast paced progressions. Melodies are then formed by sputtering electric guitar and ceremonious trumpet. It is this trumpet alongside a mixture of blaring horns that give the overall sound a grandiose appeal. The immenseness of the instrumentals is further escalated by Ware's assonant belts and overflowing harmonies. Coupled with clattering cowbells, triangles and party ambiance, That! Feels Good! swells in a jampacked ebullience of pastel Dance vibrations. Bullish pulses are only occasionally superseded by softened RnB passages seen on the tracks, 'Hello Love,' and 'Lightning.'
Whether it be these smoother Soul takes or an extravaganza of celebratory Disco, there is a consistent downpour of sensual motif. Ardent production gives way to Ware's lyrics, focused on one topic in particular: delectation. Rather than asking what may be one's source of pleasure, as in her last record, Ware brazenly articulates what causes her great satisfaction. The U.K. singer finds freedom in dance and the heat of sexual desire. While not always able to communicate a reasonable equilibrium of rapture, the LP thrives in a pink fantasy of cravings. Ware beseeches the listener to explore and embrace their fantasies, expressing a viral carefree attitude that plants an unrelenting ear-bug in one's head.
Jessie Ware's uncanny ability to manifest bodily movement is at full display in this 40 minute album. That being said, it's opulent nature doesn't always result in the positive. The record often drives near or over the breaking line of flashy manufacturing. The project is a bit overproduced at times, issuing overcrowded bunches of tumultuous instruments. This is eminent in several of the vocal harmonies, where many voices burgeon already assertive melodies. Thus, a sort of redundancy follows, as massive movements grow beyond what is ascertainable. A similar prolixity is found in the lyricism and song structure. Every track besides the narrative-based 'Shake The Bottle,' is set on an analogous perspective, fitting for the themes of the music, but lacking in greater depth. While structurally well crafted and quite sound, the progressions also tend to stick to prior arrangements, but often miss the subtlety that makes What's Your Pleasure? so replayable.
Regardless of superfluity, That! Feels Good! goes on as a distinctive chapter in Ware's discography. Glamorous commemorations of animal gratification and inexorable demonstrations of self-freedom escort an uncontrollable carnal euphoria, assured to cling to the ears of any who listen.
Best Tracks: That! Feels Good! -- Free Yourself -- Hello Love -- Begin Again -- Freak Me Now -- Lightning
Comments
Post a Comment