Moses Sumney - Græ Part Two

The Guardian 80

(Jagjaguwar)
Sumney’s “art rock and black classical” double album concludes with quieter highs

This second suite of songs completes Moses Sumney’s 20-track double album Græ, a tour de force about “the duelling forces” in oneself that places the Ghanaian-American’s vast emotional range and unfurling musicality front and centre. If Part One (released in February) came out bold, with explorations of virility and vulnerability, soaring orchestral arrangements, trombones and songs asking “am I just your Friday dick?”, Part Two slackens only slightly. The emphasis switches to the quieter, gauzier end of Sumney’s output; the pronoun “me” recurs several times.

Sumney’s impact is undimmed, however, as Two Dogs examines mortality and the beatless reverie of Bystanders wonders exactly “whose morality is grey”, picking up the album’s theme of half-states again. Multitracked backing vocals gust around Sumney’s own versatile voice here, giving form to the “visitations from spiritual realms” that (he sings) used to come to him as a boy. The sucker punch on Græ Part Two is Me in 20 Years, where Sumney fast-forwards, wondering whether he will be alone. His magnificent falsetto hits multiple crescendos alongside a repurposed trap beat and shimmering, elegiac electronics.