In 2018, Nao discovered a enjoyable metaphor for reinvention in Saturn’s return, the astrological notion that each three many years, individuals bear 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 stuffed 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, stuffed with area, centered her hanging and nimble voice, which might ascend to the heavens or rumble in her throat.
Literal area grew to become one among her major lyrical gadgets on that album, dilating her tales of romance and heartbreak into cosmic epics in regards to the pleasures of proximity and the pains of distance. She returns to that stargazing mode on Jupiter, which she’s referred to as the “sister album” to Saturn. However the writing and performances lack the luster of her earlier work, and are generally noticeably spinoff and muddled. The place her previous data confidently navigated the numerous strains of previous and current R&B that inform her fashion, 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 atmosphere that helped her get well from a debilitating autoimmune illness. Channeling that have, she spends the document spreading sunny vibes and home cheer over heat melodies and swaying rhythms. The temper is nice however nameless. “Residing like completely satisfied individuals/Residing a life extra peaceable,” she sings on the upbeat “Comfortable Individuals,” espousing a obscure trip idyll. “Know I’m all in with my pals/’Trigger we make it ultimately,” 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 develop into a crutch. Whereas she nails “Mild 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 monitor, 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 gadgets are inclined to muddle Nao’s concepts. As an alternative 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 could possibly be like mermaids, hold it twilight,” Nao says of, um, taking a plunge. Her supple singing and the vigorous manufacturing hold 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 document’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 area not as a setting or frame of mind, however as a relation between our bodies—one which’s being negotiated, in actual time, on a dinky little planet referred to as Earth.
