Kali Uchis
Sincerely,
CAPITOL
ABOVE THE CURRENT
Considering her recent subjection to the life-and-death cycle instigated by the birth of her child with partner Don Tolliver and the passing of her mother, her signage to a new label, and a move from the halting, Spanish-language synth-dembow-pop of Orquídeas to the seamlessly dreamy neo-soul of Sincerely,—no, Kali Uchis is not living through the currency of experience with the aching vocal sonority of Holiday, Piaf, or Joplin. Yet something has shifted for Uchis—both as singer and as writer—as she takes the tripling axis of joy, pain, and existential dilemma into song, with an overarching production sensibility that’s fifty shades of cloudy, and counting.
With all but two of Sincerely,’s songs credited solely to Uchis as writer (under her given name: Karly-Marina Loaiza), everything connects directly to her sense of freshly shared well-being and loss. Yet for all of its roller-coaster-ing sentiments, this new album remains on a surprisingly even keel, a uniformly moody mix reminiscent of The Weeknd despite its multitude of producers at work. Perhaps, too, the manner in which Uchis delivers her 500 flavors of feeling has something to do with its sobering, soulful tone. For the honey-voiced Uchis runs through her lyrical emotions as one would while penning a letter and addressing its commentary sign-off (hence the album’s reliance on the comma after the title): frankly and first hand; seriously, but with a hint of the comedic and the scent of the flowery for effect.
So there are bounty-filled songs such as “Heaven Is a Home…” that touch on her pride and awe while pregnant, as well as a love-conquers-all vibe as heard on “It’s Just Us” and plenty of earnest, outreaching lyrics best exemplified on “Angels All Around Me” (“Let us pray / The stars in your eyes will never fade / And I pray / For your happiness every day”). There are jazzy songs such as “Silk Lingerie,” that remind you of how her baby got made, and the question of ’til-death-do-we-part romanticism on “Fall Apart,” where she’s quizzing her better half: “Do you love me even when I get difficult?” Though she sounds insecure in such moments, she’s on solid enough ground to defend her romance on “Territorial” and own up to her quirks through the doo-wop of “All I Can Say.”
Though you might want her new album to have more valleys and peaks, more sonic ups and downs, and more lyrical side-to-side battles, having a Kali Uchis who’s at one with her universe through the life and death cycle is a thrill unto itself. Sincerely.
