hugot on The Romantic

I spent the first half of this waiting for him to raise his voice. He does it twice. The Motown yeah-yeahs stacked behind his rasp on Something Serious, and the back end of Nothing Left, which is going to end karaoke nights early for the next decade. Everything around those two is him and D'Mile putting congas and brass exactly where you'd expect them, and I mean that as a compliment maybe half the time. What keeps my usual complaint off the table is that it moves: mariachi horns opening Risk It All, Something Serious swinging like a Santana record somebody found in a closet. Thirty-five minutes, ten songs, nothing overstays. It holds as long as the next one isn't this same arrangement with new lyrics on top.