Miguel - War & Leisure

Pitchfork 81

Miguel’s fourth album has a kinetic sexual and political energy. With less digital funk and more reverbed-out guitar, his R&B psychedelia for uncertain times shows his maturation as a songwriter.

The Guardian 80

(RCA)

Having dropped acid on to his R&B sugar cube for his previous album, Wildheart, giving it a richly psychedelic flavour, Miguel continues his trip to create some of the most imaginative pop music around. The production is exceptional, with distorted guitars and ambient noise offset by whip-crack drum programming; moments of pure body-high pleasure, like Travis Scott’s Auto-Tuned arrival on Skywalker, the Latin strut of Caramelo Duro or the Prince-level funk of Told You So, are surrounded by murky idiosyncrasies.

The tropical lope of Banana Clip is so brilliantly realised it makes Miguel’s nudge-wink metaphors about shooting firearms seem like the height of sophistication, even romance. And though he sometimes gives into funky ad-libbing instead of building solid vocal melodies, his voice, particularly when drowsily tossing out raps or soaring in its upper mid-range, is a beautiful instrument that always ties the groove together.

The Guardian 80

(RCA)

The Weeknd has a rival for the crown of “the new Michael Jackson”. On his fourth album, R&B man Miguel’s versatility and sureness of touch recall that of Jackson in his pomp – or, as the track Sky Walker (featuring Travis Scott) has it, he’s “Top Gun, on my Tom Cruise”. The 80s are writ large on War & Leisure, which cribs its musical ambition and expansiveness from that era’s pop, rock and soul. Our troubled times are never far away though, as the Grammy-winner newly into transcendental meditation swaps his raunchy default for loftier themes. Pineapple Skies is the most obvious soaraway, feelgood hit, but very little on War & Leisure falls flat.