"Look back, see me behind you / When it feels good you don't have to try to." The song then comes to life on the chorus as he compares love to speeding down the highway on a motorcycle. "We don't stop, but the time do / Lovers in another life, let me remind you," he sings on the opening verse. However he's confident that he can get her to take the ride. The love he sings of over the track's floating guitar melody is one that's been a long time in the making. The words “you got a hold on me” frequent the chorus with a voluminous acceptance succumbing to the stronghold of love while enjoying every moment – it’s a real, organic feeling, seldom reached by the extreme cleanliness of ‘Gold-Diggers Sound’."Motorbike" on its own is an innocent tale of love as Leon plays the classic role of a man courting the object of his affections. It’s also likeable when that same guy is seen suavely strutting through the city at dusk on ‘Steam’, with a gold-toothed grin and subtle funk guitars. The woodsy percussions – somehow unaffected by later synths – of closing track ‘Blue Mesas’ give off likeable personality, and not just that of a romantic thrusting his romance into the face of other possible romancers. In the case of ‘Motorbike’, it’s serenity it didn’t even need a music video, the chillwave-style highway that emanates from these softly-breathing pads plants that impression of two partners in crime cruising mountainside on a motorbike like a novel that ends up with a dumbed-down film adaptation – not knocking the track’s video. Only occasionally does the album convey imagery that isn’t stilted lust. He tries to lay it all on the line in Shelley fashion on ‘Sho Nuff’, but said sterilisation leads to an overt lack of response – the girlfriend is leaving she’s had enough. I guess you could argue ‘why not both?’, but neither song is particularly exciting so it doesn’t really matter.Īnd that is the other side to Leon’s academia standard romance. The electronic drums suggest direction, but only suggest, because ‘Magnolias’ later adapts a Latin folk guitar, as if Leon doesn’t know whether he wishes to be the secretive, blasé romantic or the guy that serenades the girl with a toothpick wedged between two premolars. To boot up the album with ‘Born Again’, Leon wanders around a wilderness comprised of synthetic atmosphere and the occasional horn. He vacantly stumbles around the near-seven-minute ‘Don’t Worry’ with such little drive or melody, to the point where I am worried he utilises the kind of guitar reverb that pops up regularly in super commercialized pop on ‘Why Don’t You Touch Me’. It’s a numb craving for sensuality and sophistication, resulting in Leon Bridges’ most boring album to date. Therein lies the issue the splashes of Leon’s ‘hardest working man’ sweat were felt all over debut album ‘Coming Home’ – now, we’re three albums in and every stylistic token clung to on ‘Gold-Diggers’ is too damn clean, like a house so posh and protected that no fun is allowed. ‘Details’ does actually resemble a fairly decent Paak impression, which is again attempted on the mournful ‘Sweeter’, with stoic 808s tampering with the result. The saucy strains of Leon’s voice cushion splendidly against chorused guitar on ‘Details’, but with such an indecisive gameplan flowing through ‘Gold-Diggers Sound’ an anti-style that disassociates itself from Bridges’ authentic soul past, the hit-like kaboom of the song is seldom replicated. Paak, and if there is much of an oxygen-like cruciality to Bridges’ new album ‘Gold-Diggers Sound’, it’s a vow to engender adaptability to carry one’s voice over widths of stylistic sources, in Anderson. A frequent image comprises a young couple the boyfriend driving with girlfriend cuddled behind. The music video to Leon Bridges’ ‘Motorbike’ is all-romance with a twist, but I won’t spoil it. ‘Gold-Diggers Sound’ a numb craving for sensuality and sophistication.
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