Grande Waste of a voice

Ariana Grande deserves a medal – in fact two. One is for showing such grace in the aftermath of a suicide bomber turning the end of her concert at Manchester Arena into a massacre. The other medal is for getting back on the horse. She returned to Manchester within a fortnight to headline One Love, then resumed her world tour. She has also got on with her life, becoming engaged to the comedian Pete Davidson. And now here is her fourth album, Sweetener.

Rather than sending out copies to reviewers, the record company held a playback session, so I’ve heard it only twice. The protectiveness is understandable but self-defeating, since new music is more likely to grow on us than to pall. She has largely stuck to the standard template of today’s R’n’B machinery. The producers are renowned, the rhythms fragmented, the music chiselled, the lyrics less so.

Sweetener starts beautifully, with a sliver of a song called Raindrops (An Angel Cried), sung all but unaccompanied. Within ten seconds Grande’s glorious voice is in full flight; within 30, she is holding a note like Whitney Houston on a good day, and then she’s gone. For the next 45 minutes she is mostly in her whispery mode.

The first few songs don’t suffer for it, as Pharrell Williams takes charge and delivers three tunes that are breezy and diverse. We still haven’t had the first two singles, No Tears Left To Cry and God Is A Woman, both punchy top-five hits.

But from here on the quality slips and it’s a waste of Grande’s voice, which seldom reaches its full wattage. On her next album she should sing a capella all the way through.