Leon Bridges: Review of the Leon album

The past few years have always been a balm for Leon Bridges, the neo-soul singer who first became known for consciously reviving pre-Motown R&B upon his 2015 debut. Return home. With each subsequent recording, Bridges crept further into modernity, but his fourth album, Leonfloats on another level: it's a nostalgia trip that hides its sentimentality behind its highly stylized, highly polished exterior.

While Bridges previously described his references to the past as a sign of authenticity, all the borrowed sounds are there Leon are deliberately blurred and play with collective memories of good times together. Woven together, the enveloping reverb, soothing rhythms and melodic yearning create a well-worn scrapbook for Bridges, a vehicle that allows him to reminisce in comfortable peace. As he gets to one of the album's central tracks, he finds himself in a “peaceful place,” enjoying the sweet silence of a bright, sunny view.

Leon maintains this blissful attitude throughout the album's concise 43 minutes. Bridges created his gentle influence in tandem with Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, a pair of producers who have since served as Kacey Musgraves' main collaborators Golden hourthe 2018 album that won the country singer the Grammy for Album of the Year. Golden hour is a blueprint for Leonparticularly in the way reclaimed vintage sounds serve as stylish accents for modern pop. Musgrave's blurring of genres and eras was deliberately amorphous, resulting in music that could flow seamlessly into pop and country playlists. Bridges tries a similar trick Leon. He avoids anything strikingly contemporary, yet still ends up creating an album that sounds thoroughly modern, as it can be broken down into any number of arrangements; It would sound equally good on playlists designed for morning coffee or evening chill out.

Bridges draws from numerous sources, touching on both introspective folk and pulsating pop. What unites the album is an ever-present rose-colored nostalgia, underpinned by his infinite gratitude. Early in the album, he delivers a long list of his affections with “That's What I Love,” setting a soothing tone that is never broken. Although he peppers the record with hints of the unpleasant – beneath his sunny pulse, “Panther City” contains a hint of the troubles lurking in the neighborhoods surrounding his childhood home – his sweet, rounded tone and gently shaped settings give the impression that that this is the case He has left the darkness behind him. There's no rudeness here, no down-to-earthness: it's a fantasy built from pleasant memories and dusty old records.

Fantasy can be appealing, of course, especially when conjured with the tender care of Bridges, Fitchuk and Tashian Leon. Drawing heavily on the sun-bleached soul of the early 1970s, the trio paints with acoustic tones, muted funk, fuzz guitar, glittering keyboards and, in the case of “Laredo,” jazz flute. None of the songs are playing Leon sound exactly the same – the sensual, slow “Ain't Got Nothin' on You” gives way to the wistful piano ballad “Simplify” and the pastoral pleas of “Ivy” slide into the sensual “Ghetto Honeybee” – but for all its variety, Leon is strangely monochromatic, even a little insular. The culprit is the studio's artistry, which is so skilled that it refuses to allow any boldness into the proceedings; The arrangements are airless and leave no room for dissonance or accidents. The cleanliness of production matters Leon feel strangely smooth. All the emotions Bridges evokes in retrospect are distilled into another textural element in the mix, a move that results in an album as soothing as a cool summer breeze – and just as fleeting.