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Just a quick post to shout this album out --- it's easily among my top picks of the year so far, especially in the soul-to-r&b range. I know very little about Sabre (aside from he's Irish) and this was my first album checking from him but man, instant fan.
Stylistically, this sits comfortably in that overlapping space of retro soul and neo-soul, similar to the Mara TK album from last year, but really carves out some territory of its own. These are mostly mid/downtempo tracks with a great deal of subtlety in the arrangements and LAYERS UPON LAYERS to the vocals. I mean, the first track, "Falling," starts with 45 seconds of almost exclusively swirling, layered vocals. At their thickest, they remind a bit of D'Angelo's layers, but they're different, too: there's a lot of movement and dynamics, rarely just stacked straight upon each other, if that makes sense. Like the haunting vocals on "Get By," a favorite from the album: on the chorus, they just ebb and flow and cross lines with each other -- it's pretty brilliant. Or on "Place and Time," just guitar and vocals for the whole track but at times the vocals just shine on another level completely.
And yeah, thick vocal layers is a good way to get me interested -- but the rest of the execution here is just flawless to me. Where the retro nods show up, they are mostly gentle -- rarely in your face -- and same goes with certain neo-soul tropes, like the Dilla-esque drums on "Not Easy Love" or the Voodoo-like horns on "Time Away." There are earworm melodies in some spots ("Good Man," "Middle of Eden"), and where they appear he proves himself able to hold down a single vocal line strong. And to me the sequencing is really solid, moving easily from one tune to the next and feeling very immersive in the process (including some nice segues). I'd probably cut one or two tunes ("Like This", for one, maybe "Something Special") but it runs just fine without skips -- there's nothing tiring or totally out of place.
Anyhow, every listen keeps opening up more for me. I'd encourage folks to check it out for sure.
Favorite cuts:
Get By
Get Down
Middle of Eden
Not Easy Love
-thebigfunk
~ i could still snort you under the table ~
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