Album Review: Rhye - Woman

Rhye
Woman
Rating: Grrrr

Opening with lush strings, harp, horns, and a Sade-like coo, Woman immediately establishes itself as something subtle and haunted. The lyrics for "Open" are painful, the singer caught between the "gentle sting" of a love fading. That you believe the vocalist to be female is your first mistake, and over the course of the album creates a strange tension that subverts your take on gender roles and what constitutes the and feminine and masculine. Paired with Danish producer Robin Hannibal (of Quadron), Rhye’s vocalist Mike Milosh, a Toronto-born, Los Angeles-based singer, toys with the listener, using the upper range of his register to provoke feminine allusions, while dropping into the lower register on occasion to reveal his more masculine traits. The songs, all of which deal with relationships in some shape or fashion, take on a slightly schizophrenic air, as it feels like internal personalities are all jockeying for position. But ultimately what wins out on this record is that songs are so good. Using a minimal palate of strings, keyboards, and hushed percussion, Rhye comes across like Sade working with The xx, utilizing silence just as much as instrumentation. This approach comes across as fairly simple at first, but over the course of the record it reveals itself to be masterful, never adding too much or subtracting too much.

Woman provides a slew of amazing singles to sink your teeth into. The aforementioned "Open" is the perfect entry to Rhye's charms; the delicate instrumentation caressing the aching tones of Milosh's voice imploring his lover to stay with him.



"The Fall" is more spritely, with a subtle groove and broad piano chords belying the somber lyrics about another lover running away.



Other standouts include the gorgeous harmonies and doo wop choruses of "Major Minor Love." Almost no instrumentation begins the track, with only a subterranean bass and gentle drumming, before minimal piano keys are brought in with sting accents. Milosh's voice is all throughout the track, pushing and pulling it to its haunted conclusion. "Hunger" provides a disco workout, amping up the pace a bit, Milosh's breathy coo dancing around the slinky beats. "Shed Some Blood" sees Rhye hitting a sleek Sade-esque groove, crisp guitars gliding over tinny, skittering beats.

Throughout Woman, Milosh's voice is definitely the focal point. He knows just how to ache out the right emotion at the right time. Hannibal is the perfect foil for him, never overstating the musical accompaniment, knowing exactly when to add the right embellishment or let Milosh's voice alone do the work. On one of my favorite tracks on the record, "One Of Those Summer Days" is almost acapella aside from gentle Cocteau Twin-like guitars and sax accents. While on tracks like "Last Dance," synth stabs and horns push Milosh's wounded voice along adding just the right amount of framing. After a gorgeous harp intro, stunning mid-tempo ballad "3 Days" takes off with a lite jazz feel, the horns sliding in and out of the piano and bouncy keyboards, until the end when the strings overtake the track as Milosh's voice gets more and more despondent.

Woman is a gorgeous record that will completely captivate you with its intense spell. Milosh's androgynous voice takes a while to adjust to, but somehow it all works, even though you tend to lose track of what gender is singing. Like the debut album from The xx, which basically appeared fully formed, Woman arrives in its own hermetically sealed universe that almost can't be tampered with. It will be interesting to see what direction they take Rhye, but for now, it is a perfectly enticing universe.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.