MEMORIA, in blue

Over his last several EP's I've felt less and less interest in his music since when I discovered him. He has a powerful voice that makes him seem like he should be featured on some mainstream hits. Yet his music has shifted more and more towards traditional R&B. Not that that's a bad thing, but the production has been lacking interesting features. "MEMORIA, In Blue" has me relieved as instead of going harder into traditional R&B, he has woven in more smooth synth textures in a creative way. First things first, having a debut album under 30 minutes is a bit of a letdown in my eyes. If fans really want to eat up your work and you create something that they will like, give them a good-sized plate. This comes in a small portion, which sounds expensive, but it's tasty. The growing distortion on "HIGHER" is unlike anything I've heard in an R&B song before and brings a rich layer of uniqueness to the album. There is this goldilocks streak where everything is just right with "GREEN VOWS", "AGAIN", and "THAT'S MY...". All three of these have great use of his vocals and production to make one of a kind songs. The other drawback his music suffers from is memorable choruses. His vocal flairs are gorgeous but I think he gets a bit lost in the sauce on songs and exemplifies what his voice is capable of over what would be well-written melody. Once again, this album does fix this on the aforementioned tracks. It's not like this is completely gone however as some of the remaining tracks do struggle with this common pitfall. I hope that this is really the beginning for him and not just a side step given his track record of simplifying the production until now. Perhaps it was a budgetary restriction and the fact that this is an album finally allowed him to raise the level of quality but we will see.

Pretty good debut RnB album here. He's released plenty of singles before this, but it's his first full length so technically a debut. I think he still hasn't quite found his groove yet but the potential is there. Definitely worth a listen if you enjoy RnB or neo soul. Favourite Tracks: - Again - My Loss - Higher