The Daily Spin, September 1
Jacob Collier | Djesse Vol. 3
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: Djesse Vol. 3 (2020)
Artist: Jacob Collier
Link:
This is not really that much a favorite of mine, but I felt it was a necessary and intriguing conclusion to the Djesse trilogy that we’ve reviewed the first Friday since July.
My greatest issue with this album isn’t the overcomplication from the first record, nor is it the wildly theatrical production of the second, but it’s the inconsistency. As I see it, this album has the highest highs of his work so far, but it’s paired with some vicious lows that drag down the record like lead ballast to a submarine.
First, the bad: ‘Count The People’ and ‘In My Bones’ stand out as examples of this, but woefully misapplied features paired with production that feels like an anxiety attack are particularly poor ways to entice me into an album, and positioning these as your two-three hitters feels like looking at the 2020 Reds lineup. Help.
Collier still struggles with the theatrics and the overexaggeration - yes, it’s remarkable, his talent for layering, but sometimes it does feel a bit wrought by the end of things, sitting there with 85 different Jacobs oohing and aahing at you.
The good, though: that same knack for layering plays out brilliantly more often than it doesn’t, most obviously on the brilliant and beautiful closing duo of ‘He Won’t Hold You’ and ‘To Sleep’, both cases where Collier chooses to play his choral strengths in multiples, done beautifully overtop instrumentals that know when to take a backseat, instead lending their strength to the gently tiding beats that float and flow under Collier’s vocals in a way that makes me think it’s how all his albums should be.
The other positive I have to mention here is that Collier’s music is endlessly fun, especially when it’s good. Take the Daniel Caesar collaboration, ‘Time Alone With You’, or ‘All I Need’, with Mahalia and Ty Dolla $ign, jubilant and delightful and silly and extravagant in a way that so few artists can do correctly.
If more of the album were like that, it’d float into the stars. Instead, it feels heavy in the foot, an unfortunate handicap.
Rating: 7.5/10
Best Tracks: Time Alone With You; To Sleep; He Won’t Hold You; All I Need
Worst Tracks: Count The People