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Shawn Mendes wins agains with a stellar album

Shawn Mendes by Shawn Mendes
Shawn Mendes by Shawn Mendes

A- Shawn Mendes

Shawn Mendes

Virgin EMI

The month of May is turning into a banner one for album releases from young, good-looking, sensitive singer-songwriters blessed with awesome falsettos. First came Charlie Puth and now comes his tour mate Shawn Mendes.

Mendes' self-titled third album follows the successes of Handwritten and Illuminate, which both topped the Billboard 200 albums chart. The new one should do that as well, with ease. He deserves it.

Like Puth, Mendes has a knack for pop hooks, but Shawn Mendes has a quieter, funkier and more soulful vibe. On the sensitive scale, Mendes might actually beat Puth: The 19-year-old is more introspective, fragile and yearning here than the more cocky Puth's first-rate Voicenotes.

The album opens unconventionally for a pop collection with Mendes fighting depression in the Kings of Leon-sounding rocker "In My Blood" ("Laying on the bathroom floor/Feeling nothing/I'm overwhelmed and insecure").

Mendez gets in a welcome R&B groove for the lovely, aching "Lost in Japan" and goes on to admit self-consciousness in "Nervous" and vulnerability in "Where Were You in the Morning?" The quirky song "Particular Taste" shows a Mendes ready to experiment with song form -- and romantic partners.

Mendes gets songwriting help from frequent collaborators Teddy Geiger, Scott Harris and Geoff Warburton and perhaps their best song together is the aching "Because I Had You."

If "Fallin' All In You" sounds very much like an Ed Sheeran jam that's because Mendes co-wrote it with Sheeran and Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol. Two duets -- one with Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic and the other with Julia Michaels -- also both underwhelm, especially with such strongwriters aboard.

That's certainly not the case when Mendez teams up with Khalid on "Youth," a stunningly beautiful union of two of the most exciting millennial voices pushing back against the old order, singing "You can't take my youth away/This soul of mine will never break."

Hot tracks: "Lost in Japan," "Because I Had You," "Youth"

-- MARK KENNEDY

The Associated Press

B Josh Rouse

Love in the Modern Age

Yep Roc

Josh Rouse says his new album was inspired by Leonard Cohen, The Blue Nile, 1980s Roxy Music and Prefab Sprout.

On it, Rouse uses synthesizers as songwriting resources, often giving them a lead role but with plenty of guitars and other accompaniment.

The album is a compact set of cool, airy but caring songs about relationships in different stages of development or deterioration.

Opener "Salton Sea" is the bounciest, but the music's bright rays don't penetrate the lyrics, while "Hugs and Kisses" is the sun returning after the storm. The title track, in The Blue Nile style, is "for the lovers who stick with it" in times where "too many options, acquaintances" may prevent you from seeing the tree in the forest.

"There Was a Time" has a Cohenesque feel -- though it could be Richard Hawley, too -- and the late Cohen may also be getting a wink with the title of "I'm Your Man." While Cohen was willing to do anything for his lover, Rouse's guy has been out carousing and sounds more provocative than committed -- "Come and get me while you can."

Hot tracks: "Salton Sea," "Love in the Modern Age," "There Was a Time"

-- PABLO GORONDI

The Associated Press

B+ Playboi Carti

Die Lit

AWGE/Interscope ***

Atlanta's Playboi Carti would not be the first artist to be looked upon as enigmatic, especially as -- up until the present -- he's released none of his own solo material to show for his long rep as the king of the mumble rappers. Features? He's had a slew of them since 2014, with repetitive, conversational guest bits on big records from the A$AP crew, Gucci Mane, 21 Savage, and Lil Uzi Vert, to say nothing of countless leaked freestyle clips on SoundCloud.

Now, after finally dropping an eponymous 2017 mixtape, there's a full Carti artist-album to speak of, with his usual mix of sparsely appointed grumbles, sweet sing-songy phrases, and melodic murmurs and grunts. With co-producer Pi'erre Bourne and samples from Zapp and Jodeci, Carti makes sly reference to his rep and his style with the head-banging "R.I.P." Philly's Lil Uzi Vert joins his mumble-rap brother in the surging "Shoota," with each man staking his particular claim to guy play and power moves. To add to the art and drama of Carti's mumbles, there's the trick of pitch-altering vocal programming that gives the rapper a rushed, dangerously hysterical tone on "Long Time" and "Lean 4 Real" -- like Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet," only fleeter. Frippery and mumbles aside, Carti isn't playing. Die Lit is a stellar, imaginative debut.

Hot tracks: "R.I.P," "Shoota"

-- A.D. Amorosi

The Philadelphia Inquirer

photo

Love in the Modern Age by Josh Rouse

Style on 05/29/2018

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