Swedish diva’s back with BANGERS AND BALLADS
ZARA LARSSON: Venus (Sommer House) Verdict: Luminous comeback ★★★★✩ BRITTANY HOWARD: What Now (EMI) Verdict: Scattergun solo effort ★★★✩✩
SHE seemed a superstar in the making when she broke through with the teenage pop hit Lush Life in 2015. She followed that by topping the singles chart alongside Clean Bandit on Symphony. But Zara Larsson’s fortunes have fluctuated since then, her progress stalled by the strains of adolescent fame and derailed by a lockdown that coincided with her 2021 release Poster Girl.
Her new album, Venus, is a bid to get back on track, and the 26-year-old has made a few changes to cement her position behind Abba, Robyn and double Eurovision winner Loreen as Sweden’s next big cultural export.
She’s set to make her acting debut in upcoming Netflix drama A Part Of You, and this album is the first on her own label, a move designed to give her greater artistic control.
She’s also moved from Stockholm to L. A., where she made Venus with producer Rick Nowels, a West Coast veteran and the cowriter of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is A Place On Earth. ‘Rick made me back my own ideas,’ she says. ‘Part of me wants to be this glossy girl. The other part wants to sit in bed and chain-smoke all day.’
The upshot is a set of bangers and ballads, with the onus firmly on Zara the dazzling diva rather than the nicotine- craving couch potato — though a reliance on machine-tooled effects sometimes makes this a frustrating listen.
She opens with a banger. ‘ You can’t tame the girl ‘cause she runs her own world,’ she sings on Can’t Tame Her, a feminist anthem built around glimmering 1980s keyboards in the style of The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights. It’s a strong start, but also one of several songs drenched in studio trickery. I’d prefer her husky, tremulous voice without the digital enhancement.
The top songs add emotional heft to her mix of pop and dance. Best of all, Soundtrack looks back on an affair by referencing the songs — from Radiohead and Lana Del Rey — by which she remembers it. ‘You kissed me during Karma Police,’ she sings. ‘And every time I hear Born To Die, it’s like I’m in a time machine.’
Larsson’s clearly hungry to fulfil her early promise. On Venus, she’s getting closer.
■ TOWARDS the end of her second solo album, Brittany Howard (right) explains how her attitudes have changed as she hits her mid-30s. ‘I’m not the person you were introduced to, and it’s getting harder not to disappoint you,’ she sings on Samson, a jazz ballad punctuated by trumpeter Rod McGaha and the eerie sounds of a cristal baschet (an instrument made of chromatically tuned glass rods). Between songs, the chiming of crystal singing bowls gives a New Age feel. It’s a far cry from Alabama Shakes, the blues band that brought Howard to our attention in 2012. When she tells us she’s not the person we first met, she’s not kidding.
Howard, 35, signalled her desire to branch out on her promising solo debut, Jaime, in 2019, moving between funk, soul and rock. She’s now going for broke, although there are times when her experimental instincts arrive at the expense of accessible tunes.
Earth Sign, a slow-building meditation on love, is dominated by complex barbershop harmonies. Red Flags is all jarring beats.
But when she gets it right, she’s unstoppable. Sung in a soft soprano, I Don’t is a 70s-style soul ballad worthy of The Delfonics.
In Alabama Shakes, her powerhouse vocals, seemingly from a bygone era, were compared to Janis Joplin. That grit is still there, but she’s now more versatile.
She also lays her emotions bare. Her same-sex marriage to fellow musician Jesse Lafser ended in 2019, and Howard holds nothing back in her account of the divorce. ‘I’ve been making plans that don’t include you anymore,’ she sings. Amid the brutal introspection, it’s a patchy return — albeit one with exceptional moments.
■ Both albums are out today. Zara Larsson starts a tour on February 16 at Manchester Academy (ticketmaster.co.uk). Brittany Howard starts her tour on July 2 at Koko, London (brittanyhoward.com).