Back in late 2012, Rhye dropped a double A-side single: Open/The Fall. A lot of people really liked it; I find those two songs to be lightweight, but enjoyable soul pastiches, a very silky sounding pair of sexy songs, crooned vocals over immaculate beds of laid back seventies style music. So, Rhye came out with this entire album in 2013 and it’s hard not to see it for exactly what it is, which is a quickly thrown together attempt to capitalize on the success of the single. The album is barely over thirty minutes and it starts with the single: Track 1 is Open, Track 2 is The Fall and they’re frankly the best songs on the album. The album is, taken as a whole, just kind of a mushy pastiche, a sort of bland puree of crooning, light finger-snap percussion, nice production and a whole lot of nothing memorable at all. It’s not a bad album exactly and a certain amount of care has been taken in the production, but the songs are just all totally forgettable and the album just runs together into a bland sonic soup. Strongly recommended against. 1 ½ stars.
tl;dr – effort to capture sweet, sexy sounds is just bland, forgettable and soporific. 1 ½ stars.