A pop star in bloom
ON Troye Sivan’s debut album in 2015, he admitted he was “just a lost boy/ready to be found”. The Australian singer-songwriter was often shy, anxious, almost quivering. When asking his lover for a kiss, he begged him not to bite. Sivan is back this year and, wow, what a difference three years makes.
A confident, in control and very knowing Sivan returns with the aptly titled Bloom, an addictive 10-track collection of unrushed, synth-rich pop songs from a man now not afraid of love bites. “I got my tongue between your teeth,” he sings in My My My!, a euphoric flash-bang burst of freedom and happiness.
The actor-model-You Tube star reunites with some of his main songwriting partners – Brett McLaughlin, Bram Inscore and Allie X – but the result is more adult, atmospheric and assured than his impressive debut album
Blue Neighbourhood. That portrayed a young man coming to grips with his sexuality and a new world of sensual experiences.
On the last album, he was asking to hold hands and just sleep next to his lover (“but that’s all I want to do right now”). Now he’s offering a “trip into my garden,” a line that comes from the title cut, a sly and sensual love song cleverly stuffed with double entendres. (“I bloom just for you.”)
Nowhere is Sivan’s maturity more apparent than on Dance To This, his fantastic, spacy duet with Ariana Grande that is perfectly calibrated and features voices melding beautifully. It goes down like an ice-cold glass of water on a hot night.
Sivan also shows off his confidence and ability in a stripped down Postcard, with Gordi offering her vocals. What A Heavenly Way To Die, which takes its name from The Smiths’ There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, initially sounds like a risky move but ends up quite beautiful and perfectly executed.
The only real misstep on the CD is the lyrics to Plum, which has so many fruit-based references that it seems forced.
The album ends with the slow-burning, turgid Animal, which may remind fans of Wild from his debut. Both songs – about lust – are curiously contained. There’s a strange coolness there, belied by primal lyrics that include “I am an animal with you.”
It’s wonderful, but here’s hoping Sivan lets loose a little on his third album. So far, he’s bloomed into a pop force to be reckoned with. – Mark Kennedy/AP
My New Moon A LOT of singers have put out angry music in the Trump era, but Amos Lee may have written the first great protest song: Crooked ,a smouldering, darkly humorous hymn about a “crooked leader on a crooked stage” who “seems to think he’s standing tall”.
Lee, 41, a veteran Philadelphia singer-songwriter who has worked with Norah Jones and Willie
Amos Lee
Nelson, does not absolve himself (and, by extension, the rest of us) from blame in the song: “Turns out that I’m crooked, too,” he sings, in his understated rasp.
The rest of My New Moon is pristinely written, arranged and performed, of a piece with Lee’s seven previous albums, notably 2013’s hit Mountains Of Sorrow, Rivers Of Song. It begins with All You Got Is A Song, in which an R&B orchestra with fantastic backup vocalists empathises with Lee’s chorus about singing away the pain, and peaks with a going-home anthem about Louisville, Kentucky.
Lee has spent 15-some years perfecting a soothing rock-and-soul style in the same ballpark as younger contemporaries Leon Bridges and Nathaniel Rateliff, but of all the strong material on My New Moon, it’s Crooked that suggests a potent new direction. – Glen Gamboa/Newsday/Tribune News Service
Weed Garden FOR fans of Iron & Wine, it’s Christmas in August. Weed Garden is a six-track EP including songs written by Sam Beam mostly while working toward his last full album, Beast Epic, and they sound very much like it.
Iron & Wine
Beast Epic, released a year ago, marked not just Beam’s return to Sub Pop, but also to a more unclut- tered style. While still backed by a full band, both the EP and its predecessor benefit from a regained intimacy which boosts the directness of Beam’s vocals and his bandmates’ harmonies.
On opener What Hurts Worse, there are attempts to reconcile the idealistic aspects of a relationship with what’s actually achievable before it all crumbles, while Last Of Your Rock ’N’ Roll Heroes has a vibe like Tim Hardin fronting Stephen Stills’ Manassas and a dishevelled, rickety protagonist who’s searching and struggling but also learning a life lesson every day.
Beam’s surprise gift is the exquisite Waves Of Galveston ,afan favourite getting its first official release. Its very 70’s-sounding refrain caresses the eardrums and Nick Drake may have sounded like this if singing about Texas.
There are plenty of references to nature – the sea, butterflies, serpents, rain, clouds, flowers, winds and waves – but it’s all related to the human experience and the final three songs sustain the theme. Especially affecting are the gorgeous Autumn Town Leaves and the increasingly intense and desperate closer Talking To Fog.
Weed Garden is both a wonderful bonus in relation to Beast Epic and an enchanting collection that deserves to be valued for its own plentiful merits. – Pablo Gorondi/ AP