Canadian singer Jessie Reyez is undoubtedly talented. Her 2018 EP was nominated for a Grammy. She wrote the UK’s biggest-selling song of the same year — Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa’s One Kiss. Now, her debut album reveals the depth of that talent.
The first two tracks exemplify Reyez’s bad-gal vibe. Do You Love Her opens the album with “I should have f***ed your friends / it would have been the best revenge”, the song climaxing into fantasies about shooting that cheating ex: “If I blow your brains out I can guarantee that you’d forget her.” Deaf (Who Are You) follows in a similar vein of plosive words and revenge: “I never listen / so I wouldn’t hear you anyway.”
Then Reyez surprises us. Just as you thought it might all veer into posturing processed pop, there are stripped-back, heartfelt songs like Intruders or La Memoria, where she switches effortlessly between English and Spanish.
Occasionally these ballads sound a bit conventional (Love In The Dark isn’t exactly attention-grabbing) but the contrast of Reyez’s hard-as-nails image and lyrical vulnerability makes this a thrilling listen.
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