Jessie Reyez - Before Love Came to Kill Us

Pitchfork 68

The powerhouse singer’s voice is chameleonic and present in every guise. Her debut is most satisfying not because she whizzes across multiple genres, but because of the skill she displays at each.

The Guardian 0

(FMLY/Island Records)
The Colombian-Canadian singer-songwriter delivers a deliciously dark debut

As the pop landscape becomes progressively bolder and more crowded, it becomes more difficult for any new artist to make an impact. The bandwidth is saturated. Billie Eilish is a hard act to follow; she has rewritten a lot of rules. “Attitude” is standard among R&B singers, and is just as often a pose. Shock value depreciates. But on her debut album, the breakup-fuelled Before Love Came to Kill Us, Toronto’s R&B star-in-waiting Jessie Reyez makes herself unforgettable pretty much from the word go.

Her album, out on 27 March, opens with a toss of her mane. “I should have fucked your friends, it would have been the best revenge,” Reyez seethes – you can hear her eyes are narrowed. A little later in the song, Reyez imagines shooting that cheating ex. “If I blow your brains out I can guarantee that you’d forget her, if I blow your brains out, I can kiss it better.”

Before Love Came to Kill Us is out on FMLY/Island Records on 27 March