KIWANUKA, Joe

Complaining that the album "is better on the front half than the back half" is not uncommon for me. I make that critique often enough that I start to question it—is this actually the album's fault, or is it an attention span problem of my own?

On KIWANUKA, the blame lands squarely on the titular artist. And the worst part about it is that the "worse back half" of this album starts on the third song. Seriously, this shit is boring. It's pretty, but boring; it's the Longwood Gardens of music.

The worst part about it is that you can kind of see some sort of strong message if you look at it from the right angle. There are plenty of references to the struggles of the black community, which, from my place of white privilege, the only the opinion I'm qualified to have is that this has inspired some pretty great music, traditionally. But Kiwanuka makes all these references feel obligatory in nature, like he is watching the news and seeing black kids getting gunned down, and his only reaction is, "Hmm, I guess that would make for a nice second verse."

To be clear, Kiwanuka has no obligation to make any kind of statement here. It's the half-measure that I take issue with. Either sings some cool songs or get fucking angry. Kiwanuka instead just floats some oblique bullshit out there and see if anything sticks. It usually doesn't.

Michael Kiwanuka got his status bumped when Big Little Lies chose one of his songs for their opening credit sequence. To be fair, it's a good song. But with this follow up new album, I'd argue that the songs here would more accurately represent that TV show—they both feel like they are trying to make big statements, but ultimately become a way shittier whole than the sum of parts.

What a cocktease though, isn't it? I was fucking pumped through "You Ain't the Problem," which kicks down the door, and "Rolling," which sounds like TV on the Radio taking on Marvin Gaye. These are two great tunes! What happened?!

I'll keep listening to KIWANUKA for a little longer, to see if the secrets of the other dozen songs reveal themselves to me. But as it stands now, there is a whole lot of shit that should theoretically make me agitated, but actually just makes me sleepy, and that's a fucking bummer.

GRADE: 2 pukes out of 5