Led by his subtly agile, smokily rich voice, heavily tipped south London soul singer Kwabs’s debut slinks a fine line between commercial clout and a trickier, heavy-bassed, sharp-beated, high-drama-in-the-small hours production akin to Sampha or Frank Ocean. So while his chiming, propulsive hit Walk may have popped up on the Fifa 2015 soundtrack, and Fight for Love is a little on the staidly poppy side, the more complex likes of Look Over Your Shoulder’s thrillerish build-and-hush tension, My Own’s dark and shifty Timbalandish textures and the moody, dubstep blues ballad of Forgiven, with its sunburst of a chorus, keep this lusciously atmospheric album well on the right side of smooth.
