After winning the Mercury Prize, Little Simz now has a hugely broadened public profile. Until Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, her third album she has had a slow burning upward career trajectory. The reasons for her being somewhat overlooked for so long all look now unconscionable, if not shameful. That album, though rightly lauded, was not perfect. To make it perfect you'd have to take out the portentous monologues she'd sandwiched between some tracks. I can't have been the only one to do that. You could see what she was attempting to do, but these simply did not work for me. But this also goes to show just how musically daring the album was, that despite those clunky interstices, the album remained an exhilarating triumph.
No Thank You, appears to follow relatively quickly on the tails of that success. The classy work she is doing with Info as her producer, is still proving fruitful from the evidence here. It is though, to a degree, running on the momentum from the formula of its predecessor. The experimentation softer, more moderated, subtler. Some of the tracks could be taken for being out takes from SIMBI. Ruminations on her fame, the way she has been treated, as a black woman, as someone in the music business, her mental difficulties with all of that and more, all permeate this album too. There is anger,revenge and some two fingers up are displayed. Themes are re-explored or reformulated.
Strong musical elements are woven through this album, gospel tinged and string arrangements are multi layered and counterpointed with the rhythmic tumbling of Little Simz's words. The first three tracks are a terrific way to begin any album. Opening with Angel, looped fragments turning over themselves rather beautifully, orchestral breaks flash and subside.'Life doesn't come with presets'.
Gorilla is a brilliantly compressed example of a drama.'cut with a different scissor' and is the stand out track from the whole album. A cool double bass looped riff and brass explosions rumble beneath this non stop rant. Silhouette, is slick and minimal, often only a sparse drum beat or choral phrase behind her rhymes, 'You can't touch my soul'
There are, however, tracks like Who Cares, where the loop in the background and the words do not relate strongly enough with each other. They flow passed you largely without much to note. Vaguely pleasant bumbling and banter. But such moments are rare. One might be tempted to say she is coasting throughout No Thank You, which would be unfair. It does have a huge amount to recommend it. SIMBI had a strong fertile structure running through it, this follow-up falls short in this area, and perhaps dashes any expectations we may hold. Yet if taken on its own terms there is certainly some extremely fine stuff here. Way above a lot of 2022's supposedly top flight releases.
CARROT REVIEW - 6/8
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