East London soul boy Ben Drew delivers a masterpiece . . . Fatherhood puts Plan B firmly on his A-game
PLAN B: Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose (Atlantic) Verdict: Rapper returns to soul roots LEON BRIDGES: Good Thing (Columbia) Verdict: Texan R&B star steps up
Ben Drew has never been easy to predict. The singer and rapper known as Plan B has yo-yoed between hard-hitting hip-hop and sweet soul ever since making his debut in 2006 — and his latest offering continues the trend.
The east Londoner, 34, began his career as a rapper before embracing Motown on the million-selling Defamation Of Strickland Banks.
His third album, Ill Manors, was raw and edgy, but the pendulum has now swung back to pop and soul.
Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose is his first album in six years, his seemingly leisurely schedule an upshot of his fastidious approach to writing songs and a parallel acting career that has seen him appear with Michael Caine in Harry Brown and ray winstone in The Sweeney.
with no rapping to be heard and the onus firmly on the falsetto that was so captivating on Strickland Banks, it’s a timely return that trumpets Plan B’s credentials as a rival to fellow home-grown stars Sam Smith and rag’n’Bone Man. The softer tone is also down to parenthood. As the proud father of a four-year-old daughter, Drew has been able to reflect anew on his own troubled upbringing.
His dad walked out when he was a child and he was expelled from school, making his triumph at the 2011 Brit Awards, where he won best male, particularly gratifying.
‘Becoming a father ain’t like I was shown, ’cause when I was growing up I never had one there at all,’ he sings on Grateful. He develops the theme on Mercy: ‘God I love you, and I’m grateful for my life. I’m grateful that you blessed me with a daughter and a wife.’
Aided by new co-writers, including ed Sheeran protege Foy Vance and Florence welch sidekick Kid Harpoon, he has broadened his musical palate.
He drifts into Ibiza-style dance on Pursuit Of Happiness and reggae on wait So Long. The anger that resurfaces on Guess Again is all the more effective for the gentler songs surrounding it.
Surging, melodramatic soul is his calling card, though. At 14 tracks, this comeback is too long, but it reiterates Plan B’s artistry.
If Strickland Banks was his big concept album and Ill Manors the gritty soundtrack to a Drewdirected gangster film, this is his pop masterpiece.
CLASSIC soul is also an influence on Leon Bridges, the Texan crooner who had a whirlwind rise to stardom when he went from washing dishes in a Tex-Mex restaurant to singing in front of President Barack Obama in the space of two years.
Good Thing consolidates his status as a keeper of the oldschool flame, but adds slick Seventies styles, nineties r&B and modern, digital pop to the mix.
If Bridges, 28, came across as a Sixties throwback on debut album Coming Home, complete with vintage suits, he is now up to speed with current trends.
He also opens up lyrically, with romantic uncertainty a recurring theme. Bet Ain’t worth The Hand portrays the anguish of a man scared of commitment.
Beyond finds him pondering the ramifications of new love: ‘will she have my kids? will she be my wife?’.
His anxieties ease as the album moves on. Bad Bad news is funky and optimistic (‘I made a good, good thing out of bad, bad news’), and If It Feels Good looks to the disco of Chic.
He ends on an autobiographical note, telling of his family’s financial struggle — and a moonlit tryst in an Oklahoma motel — on the jazzy Georgia To Texas.
Both albums are out today. Plan B starts a summer tour at Market Rasen Racecourse on June 1 (ticketmaster.co.uk). Leon Bridges plays Citadel Festival in London’s Gunnersbury Park on July 15 (citadelfestival.com).