You don’t should be notably keen-eared to identify Flo’s musical influences. They announce them within the opening seconds of their debut album – or moderately actor Cynthia Erivo does. Her visitor spot is the newest in a collection of high-profile co-signs the London trio has attracted. SZA is outwardly a fan; Missy Elliott guested on their 2023 single Fly Lady; rapper GloRilla turned up on this yr’s In My Bag; and MNEK, who has collaborated with Madonna, Beyoncé and Dua Lipa, has been their chief producer from the beginning. Now it’s the flip of the award-winning star of Depraved to do her factor on the intro to Entry All Areas, asserting Flo’s mission – “dangerous bitch replenishment”, apparently – and itemizing their inspirations: they’re, we’re informed, “receiving the baton handed on by Future’s Youngster, the Sugababes, SWV”. They probably wouldn’t object too strenuously if you happen to added TLC, En Vogue, Zhané and 702 to the listing.
Reanimating the sound of the traditional R&B woman group for the 2020s actually doesn’t seem to be a nasty thought. It feels totally different – lately, the style has been virtually totally dominated by solo artists – and, furthermore, it chimes with UK rap’s rash of 90s and early 00s R&B samples and a broader nostalgia in pop for the period of Napster and MTV Whole Request Stay. The outdated rule that pop revivalism tends to work in 20-year cycles, burnishing the music younger artists bear in mind as children, nonetheless holds true.
Understandably, Flo’s well timed arrival has been greeted with pleasure. Fairly other than the aforementioned superstar followers, they received the BBC’s 2023 Sound of … ballot (beating Fred Once more into second place) and the identical yr’s Brit Rising Star award, and have attracted way more consideration within the US than a British R&B woman band of the early 00s ever would have finished, scoring nominations on the BET and Soul Practice awards. And but, within the two years that separate their debut single from their debut album’s arrival, the eye hasn’t fairly translated to reputation: a few medium-sized hits, and streaming figures which are first rate moderately than extraordinary.
Entry All Areas makes you abundantly conscious that the charts could be a greater place with Flo in them. The songs are punchy and effectively written, as on the poppy Nocturnal, or Examine, which has a faint however noticeable UK storage skip to its beat. The trio deliver thick, satisfying concord vocals with out indulging in showy over-singing, and a formidable amount of angle to sagas of ineffective boyfriends and relationships gone unsuitable: you actually wouldn’t mess with the ladies singing IWH2BMX, or commanding over the stammering rhythm and rock guitar of nearer I’m Only a Lady. They will do gradual jams, each of the simple bedroom-bound selection (Gentle), or the type that traverse extra difficult emotional terrain: How Does It Really feel marries its measured pulse to a wrathful, vengeance-shall-be-mine temper.
However Entry All Areas additionally demonstrates why Flo haven’t fairly exploded. There are many good tracks right here, however no simple no-further-questions smash hit: you get the hyperlink to SWV or Writing’s on the Wall-era Future’s Youngster, however at current, they’re an SWV with out a Proper Right here or a Weak; they’re a LaTavia and LeToya-era Future’s Youngster with out a No, No, No or a Jumpin’, Jumpin’.
As well as, the one interval element Entry All Areas’ manufacturing misses is that R&B within the period it celebrates thrived on sonic risk-taking and journey. Fairly other than the songs, the large hits continuously labored by snagging listeners with novelty – even the poppiest of their avowed influences, Sugababes, weren’t above throwing the odd spanner into the works, as on the Gary Numan-sampling Freak Like Me. That sense of innovation is missing right here. It’s nice to get Missy Elliott to drop a verse in your single; it could be higher nonetheless to include among the head-turning shock that Timbaland delivered to Aaliyah’s We Want a Decision – or certainly, that the Neptunes delivered to Kelis, or Rodney Jerkins to Brandy. It comes shut on Bending My Guidelines, which marries a scrabbly guitar pattern to a lurching beat, but it surely looks like a simulacrum of early 00s oddness, moderately than a recent embodiment of its spirit.
With out that – or the aforementioned killer hit – their debut appears extra like a strong begin than an apparent smash, a good suggestion that wants fleshing out earlier than it actually comes into its personal. There’s a spark about it that means Flo deserve the house, time and alternative to do exactly that: they’re in touching distance of being genuinely nice, however their debut album is a cease on a journey moderately than an finish in itself.
This week Alexis listened to
Say She She – Purple Snowflakes
Because the hardy Christmas annuals begin to creep into the charts, one thing prematurely – and gently – festive however recent: a stunning cowl of the 1964 Marvin Gaye obscurity.
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