Sonder Son Review

Everything he became famous for later, the cold delivery, the expensive gloom, the calculated disdain, is barely present here, and the record is better for it. Cut it out of the sessions and what remains is a young singer with a light, elastic voice, a room full of real instruments and something to say about where he came from. Talk 2 U is a lovely opener. Gang Over Luv is the hit and it is simple and effective.

Poison and Burn One have genuine funk in the playing. First World Problemz / Nobody Carez, with a spoken passage from his mother, is the emotional centre and the only place he sounds frightened. The writing is plain rather than sharp and a few tracks lean on repetition to fill space. But the sequencing is coherent, the live band gives it a texture nothing else in his catalogue has, and it stands as the record where he was still curious about himself.