Born in 1984, the same year that Sade released her debut album, Jessie Ware initially spent her career under a Sadean star sign. The Londoner’s first album Devotion came out in 2012 with a sophisticated pop and soul bearing that drew on her forerunner’s influence. Her vocals were supple and restrained; the music was slinky and shimmery. It led to a Mercury
Prize nomination and top-five chart position. Her next two albums also charted, but the sophisto-pop style offered diminishing returns. By the time of 2017’s Glasshouse, Ware was, in her elegant way, treading water.
Her response has been to ditch the wine-bar aesthetic in favour of disco glitter. What’s Your Pleasure?, released in 2020, announced her new direction with an incisively crafted foray into dance floor escapism, all bustle and verve, with singing that swept through the Studio 54 landscape like a spotlight. A critical and commercial hit, the album managed not to seem forced or opportunistic. Its exuberance was infectious.
That! Feels Good! is the exclamatory follow-up. It makes no bones about repeating the formula. “That feels good, do it again,” Ware murmurs in a sultry way on the first song, which is also the title track. Fast basslines, deft drumming, rolling piano chords and flaring horns duly return to the retro milieu of What’s Your Pleasure?. As before, the impression isn’t one of cynicism, but rather ebullience and a connoisseurial ear for quality.
The songs shift the dial to a more funk-and-soul-based sound. The title track nods to the dance floor manifestos of Funkadelic, while “Pearls” echoes Chaka Khan’s majestic vocal attack. Ware essays some early 1980s-style rapping on “Beautiful People” before launching herself into an upfront series of disco chants. Reinvention is the topic of “Begin Again”, a cosmic odyssey at the centre of the album with mantra-like refrains and a maelstrom of percussion and brass. “Can we begin again?” she sings, a classy performer for whom the stars have realigned.
★★★★☆
‘That! Feels Good!’ is released by EMI Records
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