Chlöe — In Pieces
One half of musical due Chlöe x Halle, Chlöe finally releases her debut album with a mixed bag of highs and incredible lows, as she struggles to artisitically find herself within her debut LP.
At just 24 years old Chlöe is easily one of best vocalist out of the crop of R&B singers that are out currently. Give her a mic she stands out from the crowd, from a vocal perspective and her debut album is an example of this. Listening to In Pieces, Chlöe unfortunately struggles to artistically find herself from a style and song writing perspective. I’m sure age is attributed to this, as many artists in the past have gotten better with age and experience, releasing better albums after their debut. This could potentially be the case with Chlöe.
Prior the album’s release, Chlöe released first two singles failed to really get me excited for this album. The first single, “Pray It Away”, released back in January the single comes across over dramatic. Using a gospel inspired sound, the song sees Chlöe turning to God and the Church to prevent her urge for revenge towards an ex. The lyrics aren’t impressive and adding the gospel inspired sound, “Pray It Away” comes across incredibly cringe worthy. The second single, “How Does It Feel” featuring Chris Brown, doesn’t fair well either. Vocally, Chlöe sounds much better than her collaborator with Chris Brown sounded slightly inferior to Chlöe. The song has both singers going back and forth reflecting on a failed relationship, making the song a cliché, as this has been done before. Additionally, the trope of a male and female heartbreak ballad is quite old in 2023. So with these two singles, I had some concerns going into this album.
To my surprise, the album actually starts off really well and it’s perhaps one of the best tracks on the album. Sampling Louis Armstrong’s 1952 song “Chloe (Song of the Swamp)”, it consists of Chlöe beautifully singing along with jazz trumpets and singing the same lyrics within the intro of Amstrong’s song. Other great standouts on the album include, “I Don’t Mind” and “Feel Me Cry”, which were two standout Pop R&B songs on the album. With the latter possessing some of the best writing on the whole album. “Looze U” which touches upon Chlöe struggling to break up and move on from her partner, is another highlight on the album. I particularly enjoyed the production on the song and fits really well with Chlöe vocals. These four records are truly the only great songs on the album, with the rest of the album consisting of records that are either not great or just okay.
One of the album’s biggest issues is its features, the album only consists of three features, that being Chris Brown, Missy Elliott and Future. “Told Ya” featuring Missy Elliott is by far the worst song on the whole album. From the song’s cheap production to Chlöe’s strange and irritating vocals, but another element that makes the song worse is Missy Elliott’s feature. Missy’s feature is incredibly forgettable and frankly doesn’t even sound like her, sadly she’s the worst feature on the album. “Cheatback” featuring Future, is song with so much potential but ruined by the Atlanta rapper. I really enjoyed Chlöe singing over a guitar, but Future’s autotuned vocals ruin any enjoyment provided by the song prior to his introduction. It begs me to wonder why he was chosen to be featured on this song, and his vocals just doesn’t sit well next to Chlöe’s.
As mentioned prior, the album does consist of records that just okay from the likes of “Heart on My Sleeve” and “In Pieces”, they aren’t songs that I believe are bad, but they aren’t incredible standouts and they don’t have me running back to them. Lastly, whilst I did enjoy “I Don’t Mind” and “Feel Me Cry” as Pop R&B tracks, I can’t say the same for a song like “Body Do”, which is song that comes across more cheesy.
In comparison to Ungodly Hour the album with her sister, Halle, In Pieces doesn’t reach the great levels of the Pop Electro-R&B records we heard on Ungodly Hour and this seems to be the consensus with many people online. On the other hand, I do believe Chlöe shouldn’t be counted out just yet. I hope that in the future, as she matures and gets older, her music will improve and will be more unique. For now though I question what the current direction is for Chlöe’s music, and whether it’s her choice or someone else is steering the wheel behind the scenes.