"Spoken-word poetry about Prometheus, screamo rap, sun-dappled acoustic guitar, airy falsetto and that's just the first track on Dua Saleh's Of Earth and Wires, their second album rooted in real-world crises and fictional lore."
"This is a lot of terrain to navigate, but that opening track, 5 Days, tackles it with real guts, twisting from tremulous vocals reminiscent of Perfume Genius into a hot flash of screamed frustration. It promises an exhilarating, bumpy ride but Of Earth and Wires turns out to be more cautious than its urgent ideas would suggest."
"A Sudanese proverb acts as a cryptic warning on I Do, I Do, a synth-pop slow jam with flushes of gorgeous oud, while Flood a falsetto exchange with Bon Iver gently meanders around imagery of biblical rebirth and climate extremes. Firestorm is a love song set against the LA fires, but it lacks heat: Saleh's slinky R&B vocals are fuelled only by desire, with references to burnt-tyre fumes reduced to set-dressing."
"Burying those high stakes means the heartfelt hope on choral closer All Is Love doesn't land as it should. Saleh has a unique artistic voice, but moments of tension and release would breathe even more life into their stories."
The album pairs spoken-word poetry about Prometheus with screamo rap, sun-dappled acoustic guitar, and airy falsetto vocals. It builds on fictional queer romance from a debut record while grounding new material in real-world crises, including climate collapse, AI dominance, and the catastrophic civil war in Sudan. The opening track, “5 Days,” shifts from tremulous, Perfume Genius-like vocals into screamed frustration, setting an urgent tone. Other songs offer brief narrative glimpses through synth-pop, oud-rich arrangements, and falsetto exchanges that evoke biblical rebirth and climate extremes. “Firestorm” frames love against the LA fires but relies mainly on desire. The choral closer “All Is Love” carries hope that does not fully land, and the album would benefit from more tension and release.
#post-apocalyptic-themes #climate-collapse #ai-dominance #queer-romance #spoken-word-and-screamo-rap
Read at www.theguardian.com
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