Review of: 'Always In Between' by Jess Glynne

I've said before in these reviews how female pop stars that appear to suddenly emerge out of nowhere and have ended up bursting into the mainstream in the past year or two have tended to have a varied shelf life. Anne Marie and Dua Lipa look like they're sticking around, but does anyone remember Raye or Mabel? They've both had huge hits, but have almost fallen off the face of the earth now. Why is this all relevant? Because Jess Glynne is one of the lucky few. 'Hold My Hand', 'Take Me Home', 'Rather Be', they were all huge hits, but thanks to smart marketing, it was clear that Glynne had never dropped out of the public consciousness when she was on a break in between albums.

Her comeback on the number one hit 'These Days' with Rudimental, Macklemore and Dan Caplen was an inspired way to make her triumphant return to pop music, and 'I'll Be There' and 'All I Am' were also pretty huge in the lead up to this album's release. It is quite weird to think that, if you wanted, you could make a perfectly reasonable argument that Jess Glynne is one of the most successful artists of the 2010s, and she's only two albums into her career.

And, based off the singles, I have some reasonable expectations going into 'Always In Between'. I hoped that it would provide a catchy, enjoyable, lightweight pop experience. On that basis, what did we get on 'Always In Between'?

We got a total mess. Never before have I ever heard a pop album be so instrumentally scattered, yet so bland and, on occasion, aggressively unlikable. If I give this album any credit at all it would be that it was a risky artistic direction for Glynne to go in, but it did not work whatsoever.

In order to explain why this album does not work, the best place to start is Jess Glynne herself. While certainly being a pleasant presence on most of these songs, when she's required to give a vocal delivery with a bit more attitude like 'Rollin'', I begin to realize that Dua Lipa could have knocked that out in her sleep, and done it a fair bit better. What I find more frustrating is when she's required to underplay like on 'Thursday', she does a fairly good job.

What I think is the bigger problem is the production on these songs. You'd think that for a pop star that relies on bright, glamorous, sweet, melodic production as much as Glynne does, her producers would not compromise a lot of the bouncy melodic grooves coming either from the synths or piano with such stiff percussion sitting at the front of the mix. I really wanted to like 'I'll Be There' for a great melodic hook, but by the second verse the percussion just dominates the mix.

Another issue is how lumbering and thin the songs can sound. '1 2 3' tries to fuse some thin pop production complete with skittering hi hats with horns desperately trying to give the song some anthemic presence that at no point properly materializes. 'Never Let Me Go' has a similar problem. It may open with a promising synth line before evolves into a thin acoustic guitar and a hook where the ugly atonal melody is hardly audible.

And that's not all. 'Hate / Love' is another lumbering, forgettable track, that could have done with some more vibrant instrumentation, and 'Rollin'' sounds like it's trying to be a kiss off track to a guy, but the production swamps out any melody on the hook before the overblown horns come in.

However hard I have been on this album, I will take the time to acknowledge that 'All I Am' and 'Thursday' are serviceable pop songs from a production perspective. 'No One', probably the best song on this album does have a lush, soaring hook that I liked a fair bit, even though it is a bit cliché with the whole 'they say your no one until your somebody to someone' gimmick.

And, on that note, lets move onto the song writing. In short, it's cliché in the extreme. I've already talked about 'No One', but 'All I Am' might be the least subtle in it's cliché  pandering. Glynne literally sings to her fans 'All I am is you'. It screams of desperation than anything else. 'Thursday' might be a much better song, but it is a bit weird how Glynne sings how she's great just the way she is, but only on one day of the week. 'Won't Say No' is the most aggressively badly written track on the album where Glynne is so intoxicated by her boyfriend, she will not say no to him. I could maybe enjoy the song if it wasn't being played so straight.

But overall, this album is a total mess, yet is bland and cliché in the worst possible way. I was a lot kinder to Anne-Marie's 'Speak Your Mind' than a lot of people, and I can see a lot of people comparing these two albums, but at least Anne-Marie had '2002', 'Can I Get Your Number', and a few other decent songs. I can't say that Jess Glynne has the same.

2 / 5

Best Songs: 'No One', 'Thursday', 'I'll Be There'

Worst Songs: 'Never Let Me Go', 'Won't Say No'