In 2018, Nao discovered a enjoyable metaphor for reinvention in Saturn’s return, the astrological notion that each three a long time, folks endure radical private transformation. The London singer, then 30, had made her title as a prophetess of synth funk, teaming up with digital producers like Disclosure, A.Ok. Paul, and Mura Masa for retrofuturist cuts filled with liquid basslines and deep grooves. On Saturn, she traded the dense funk for ventilated R&B that spanned Afropop, neo-soul, and quiet storm. The looser preparations, filled with house, centered her placing and nimble voice, which may ascend to the heavens or rumble in her throat.
Literal house turned certainly one of her major lyrical units on that album, dilating her tales of romance and heartbreak into cosmic epics concerning the pleasures of proximity and the pains of distance. She returns to that stargazing mode on Jupiter, which she’s known as the “sister album” to Saturn. However the writing and performances lack the luster of her earlier work, and are generally noticeably by-product and muddled. The place her previous information confidently navigated the various strains of previous and current R&B that inform her type, Jupiter is adrift.
The album has a light-weight theme of therapeutic and gratitude. Nao spent six months in Los Angeles recording it, a change of surroundings that helped her get well from a debilitating autoimmune illness. Channeling that have, she spends the file spreading sunny vibes and home cheer over heat melodies and swaying rhythms. The temper is nice however nameless. “Dwelling like completely satisfied folks/Dwelling a life extra peaceable,” she sings on the upbeat “Blissful Folks,” espousing a imprecise trip idyll. “Know I’m all in with my buddies/’Trigger we make it in the long run,” she chants on the highlife-inspired “We All Win.” Who’s we? The top of what? Peek beneath the rosy floor of the songs, and there’s usually no substance to the bliss.
That’s very true when Nao leans into cosmic imagery, which has turn into a crutch. Whereas she nails “Gentle Years,” a space-themed ballad with a hovering hook that builds to a fireworks pop of synths, the self-esteem extra usually produces clunkers. “Nearer once we’re far aside like/Milky Methods and hazy stars,” she says of an estranged beloved one on “Higher Days.” On the title observe, love launches her “someplace within the sky above Jupiter/Like I don’t ever wanna come again to Earth,” a distance that sounds extra like teleportation. Hyperbolic analogies are a staple of R&B, a style smitten with stormclouds and rainfall. However these units are inclined to muddle Nao’s concepts. As a substitute of massive and highly effective, her feelings really feel vague.
Most of the extra grounded songs additionally fail to launch. The playful nu-disco of “Poolside” goals for steamy enjoyable with the awkward come-on, “Come play in my poolside.” (In the poolaspect?) “Simply Dive” appears to encourage risk-taking and conquering fears, till the aquatic imagery will get confusingly mythological: “We might be like mermaids, maintain it twilight,” Nao says of, um, taking a plunge. Her supple singing and the full of life manufacturing maintain Jupiter from being a slog, however the hazy symbolism sours the expertise.
It’s telling that “All of Me,” the one track not mired in metaphor, is the file’s most affecting. Floating over bass kicks and hi-hat flutters, Nao spells out her fantasies as she scales her register. “All of me on you,” she purrs on the pitched-up hook, oozing need. It’s one of many few traces on Jupiter that thinks of house not as a setting or way of thinking, however as a relation between our bodies—one which’s being negotiated, in actual time, on a dinky little planet known as Earth.
