Case Study 01 Review

The instinct to move is understandable and the destination is unclear. Case Study 01 reaches for rock textures, heavy reverb and a sense of cosmic scale, and it lands in a fog. Cyanide is the best thing here, a genuinely great song with a rubbery bassline and a hook that sticks. Love Again, a duet with Brandy, is the other keeper. Superposition, with John Mayer, has a nice guitar tone and very little underneath it.

Elsewhere the writing turns abstract in a way that mistakes vagueness for depth, with lines about entropy and God that do not survive being examined, and the sequencing gives no sense of an argument being built. His voice remains lovely and it is often set so far back in the mix that the songs stop being intimate. Released into a difficult year for him personally, it feels like an artist reacting rather than composing. Two very good tracks and a lot of atmosphere.