Daniel Caesar knows what he’s good at.
The 28 year-old Toronto native is known for singing about love, relationships, and making sense of it all through soul and gospel-inspired tracks.
Caesar knows his niche, and on his third LP Never Enough, released April 7, the R&B singer doesn’t stray far from his usual tricks — culminating in a cozy and sometimes-boring 18-song album that evokes a comforting feeling of hearing a love note sung to no one in particular.
The album opens with “Ocho Rios,” a spacey, slow-paced intro that sets a large stage for the remainder of the album with bass and echoing vocals emitting a sense of grandeur, as if Caesar’s telling the world “I’m back” after a four year break.
But if the first track prompts listeners to expect something new, the next few songs quickly backtrack, with “Valentina” and “Toronto 2014” displaying Caesar’s impressive singing abilities atop mundane R&B instrumentals. The songs are catchy, sure, but the replay value is low.
But then the album gets better (though not for long). On “Do You Like Me” and “Always,” the fifth and sixth tracks, Caesar expands his usual range of instruments and brings us a funky, bass heavy track followed by a love song that could’ve been written decades ago but feels fresh.
“Always” is the perfect example of a simple song done right. The four minute song would fit perfectly in any movie scene with a couple slow dancing, but it impressively avoids feeling stale. As Caesar sings on the track, “I’ll be here, cause we both know how it goes, I don’t want things to stay, pray they stay the same.”
The first half of the album feels cohesive enough, but that feeling begins to fall apart in the second half, with Caesar jumping from track to track seemingly without looking behind or ahead.
And most of the guest appearances don’t help. “Buyer’s Remorse,” a collaboration with Omar Apollo, seemed promising, though the track doesn’t show either singer performing at their peak, instead opting for a two minute display of both of the singers right in their comfort zones.
“Homiesexual” featuring Ty Dolla $ign, similarly falls short of its high potential. On the track, Ty Dolla and Caesar trade spiteful and immature lines to an ex, such as “Heard you found someone else, still ain’t find yourself … I never meant to make you cry, I know you caught me in some lies, oh well, I’m not perfect.”
After “Homiesexual,” Caesar brings in dreamy hooks on “Vince Van Gogh.” The psychedelic-meets-R&B genre is interesting, but the idea feels half-baked and out of place, and the album quickly returns to more familiar territory for the remainder of the album.
The exception to the lackluster features is Summer Walker on “Always,” who adds a verse that compliments Caesar’s perfectly.
For most of the album, Caesar seems okay with relying on his old tricks, and for the most part, they get the job done. It’s definitely a Daniel Caesar album, but is it his best? No.
There are two things that separate this album from Caesar’s previous work — intimacy and variety, for better or worse. Most of the production on this album feels warm and fuzzy, making for an album that would best be played live in front of an audience of 10 in a basement.
The final two songs on the record wrap everything up in a bow, but it’s not a satisfying, large, solidly-tied bow — it’s a small, familiar bow hastily thrown on.
On the last song, “Unstoppable,” Caesar tries to convey a sense of confidence, of being satisfied with the uncertainty of the future and the endless possibilities. But he has a hard time convincing listeners at the end of an album where he didn’t reach his highest potential and remained well within his comfort zone.
On “Unstoppable,” Caesar asks one question: “who gon’ stop me?”
On this album, the only thing limiting Caesar, with his impressive vocals and thinly-veiled bravado, is himself.
— Carlos Fuentes
The Stumptown Groove 