SUMMER WALKER - Still Over It

Trends go in circles, we know that well. In the world of American r&b we're witnessing a peculiar revival: that of the soft, single-themed, sprawling LP designed to fill up all eighty minutes of the old compact disc. The era in question was that of Brandy, Monica and Ashanti, iconic faces straddling the late Nineties and early Noughties through productions that were popular yet, when called for, intricate, refined and distinctly feminine. If the success of the curvaceous Beyoncé, and the dance-leaning turns of the brazen Rihanna, later made the genre feel too lightweight to keep pace with radio rotation and streaming, the rise of trap has now almost inadvertently brought back a taste for a dull, languid calm, where sensuality, melancholy and brazenness are all deployed with the same vaguely detached tone.

Jhené Aiko, H.E.R., Justine Skye and Teyana Taylor have already had their say, and now it's twenty-five-year-old Summer Walker's turn, coming in with her second studio album, "Still Over It": twenty tracks and a full hour-plus of hazy keyboards, slow rhythms and narcotic melodies. Debuting straight at the top of Billboard was certainly a sign of unusually broad appreciation, but it's hard to imagine it translating effectively beyond American borders.

The truth is that even those who regularly keep up with the mutations of chart-topping r&b may find themselves adrift in front of this giant, drifting barge.

As if on cue, only the tracks featuring the Neptunes – "Dat Right Here" – and JT of the twerking City Girls – "Ex For A Reason" – hint at a slightly brisker pace; everything else stays firmly around 60bpm, with barely sketched circular melodic lines that drown verses and choruses alike in one single, unchanging choral flow.

The production of certain particularly diaphanous moments can be striking – see the five minutes of "Screwin", featuring a resurrected Omarion, and the skeletal yet aching "Broken Promises" – but otherwise it's genuinely hard to find a way into the whole thing. Singles, interludes, scattered tracks: all of "Still Over It" rolls forward like a train through thick fog, recounting lived experiences with a youthful candor that's as approachable as it is devoid of twists.

Summer Walker's success, in short, lies precisely in this embrace of the ordinary: her songs work like messages shared in the group chat with your closest friends, offering a warm hug alongside a bit of gossip dished out with a sharp tongue.

The genre is undoubtedly in vogue; Normani, Chloe Bailey and, featured here, SZA and Ari Lennox have all more or less fallen in line with the trend on their respective latest releases, and we'll see how the rest of the scene develops over the coming months. For now there's Summer Walker, the leading face of female r&b, who seems to have found the key to speaking to her peers and touching on subjects on the lips and social media feeds of thousands of Americans. The album, in fact, opens with a message of solidarity and encouragement from Cardi B, and closes with a prayer recited by Ciara, establishing a powerful generational dialogue between women, musicians and peers.

But musically, at least, the journey of "Still Over It" is really too flat and monotone to keep up with its own narrative. The idiosyncratic vocal delivery doesn't help either, often stubbornly held back to maintain a uniform atmosphere throughout the entire record. A shame, because Summer Walker clearly has the means to color her songwriting with a livelier, more modern touch, but for now her intentions seem to lie elsewhere.

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15/12/2021