Kindness
Otherness
MOM + POP/FEMALE ENERGY
4/10
In a world of overblown pop, Kindness sounds like a musical project that people could get behind. But, ultimately, main man Adam Bainbridge needs to write better songs. Whereas his debut under the moniker, World, You Need a Change of Mind, was a splatter of well-placed disco vignettes and affectionate (but shit) covers, Otherness is an album that has filled out, but hasn’t developed. The horn arrangements sound wonderful in “8th Wonder” and the opening of “World Restart” is funky, but this all feels so lite. It’s an album that doesn’t want to bathe in the superficiality of current pop, but can’t compose melodies that understand how to transcend it. Perhaps this is the definition of a modern pop record: sonically intriguing, clad in fashionable cloaks and curly locks, and melodically unwilling to move beyond the notion of a (mumbled) top-line hook. It’s a perfect Spotify one-player that mildly distracts.
