In the twilight years of his profession, Elton John has been anointing the subsequent era with a keener ear than most, championing new stars from Chappell Roan to Moist Leg by way of his Rocket Hour radio present and collaborating with artists as genre-diverse as Britney Spears, Gorillaz and Younger Thug. Who Believes in Angels?, nevertheless, looks like a real assembly of minds. Created alongside American nation rock royalty Brandi Carlile, an 11-times Grammy winner, there may be the audible sense of two artists pushing one another and elevating the opposite’s sport; on the rollicking rock’n’roll romp of Little Richard’s Bible, or the full-blooded nation duet Swing for the Fences, 78-year-old John seems like a person half his age.
The place lots of his current collaborations have seen him enter the sonic palettes of recent pop, Somebody to Belong To’s interweaving harmonies, or the rousing piano balladry of the document’s title monitor, stay firmly on the earth of basic, melody-driven songwriting, created by two artists supremely gifted at precisely that. The album ends with the remarkably poignant, Elton-led end-of-life reflection When This Previous World Is Accomplished With Me. Who Believes In Angels? is a positive reminder that he’s actually not there but.
