Sam Smith’s ‘Gloria’ Is a Creative Rebirth Ranging From the Sacred to the Profane: Album Review
easily could have stayed in the same lane for their entire career — beautifully sung songs about heartbreak and longing in a smooth, sometimes slick pop-R&B vein with a dazzling array of vocal pyrotechnics. But after three albums, so much heartache and moping began to feel like a third dinner with your recent-big-breakup friend.
But along with all that, Smith has become a much more assured singer, their vocals and phrasing taking on a nuance that evokes classic R&B singers from Gladys Knight and Anita Baker to Mary J. Blige, but more the mid-period work of George Michael, Sade and Prince. There’s plenty of the powerhouse soaring that fans crave, but it’s used strategically and sparingly, with the focus more on suiting the mood and the lyric than shattering glass.
The easy groove of those three songs comes to a lurching halt when “Unholy” — Smith’s swaggering smash duet with Kim Petras released last fall — throws open the door and thunders in. A throbbing pop-dance track about a family man’s adventures in unsafe sex, it has a skulking rhythm and raucous, roaring chorus that sounds like a cross between an Arabic melody and a sea chanty.
Naturally, that energy peak is followed with something drastically different: the hymn-like, vocals-only title track, which was recorded with a full choir in the medieval-era church Smith attended as a child .
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