RIHANNA Anti (Roc Nation/Universal). Rating: NNNN
Even though it was released just hours before Anti leaked online, Rihanna’s first single, Work, was a solid harbinger for the entire album.
Not because of how it sounds: the 90s-evoking, dancehall-infused track, produced by Toronto’s Boi-1da and featuring Drake, with its charmingly repetitive hook – at once throwaway and effective – is unique from the rest of the record. But, rather, in the way that it doesn’t sound remotely like a first single. It’s about as far from Umbrella or Diamonds as a pop star can get.
We should have known by the title that Rihanna, the ultimate hit machine, has not made an album full of singles. “I got to do things my own way darlin,” she confirms on opener Consideration, featuring SZA. “Why you will never let me grow?”
That doesn’t mean that Anti is weird or difficult. Rihanna’s highly anticipated eighth full-length lands happily between esoteric and top 40.
Like her last album, 2012’s Unapologetic, Rihanna flits from genre to genre with ease, this time incorporating funk (James Joint) and even 80s rock on Kiss It Better, a dramatic Prince-worthy track with throbbing synths and a satisfying guitar riff courtesy of Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt.
The bass-heavy midsection of the album is most in-line with hip-hop and R&B’s current mood: it broods, lurches and stutters with beats by DJ Mustard (Needed Me), Hit-Boy (Woo) and Timbaland (Yeah, I Said It) while pulsing along with unconventional and meandering song structures.
Then comes Same Ol’ Mistakes, an unimaginative Tame Impala cover, which, at over six minutes, feels weighty and unnecessary.
Some will lament the eclectic sounds and seeming lack of cohesiveness, but what ties it all together is Rihanna – full of personality, and in command of her raw, vulnerable and raspy instrument more than ever. We’re used to her characteristic whine giving edge to all of her songs, but in a couple of late-album love ballads, Rihanna turns in two of her all-time most nuanced vocal performances. The first, Love On The Brain, a 50s doo-wop throwback that may or may not be about Chris Brown. And then Higher, which, at only two minutes, is a desperate, drunk-dial masterpiece set to music the Temptations might sing to.
Not every song is as outstanding as the next, but at points, Anti is incredibly satisfying and sufficiently distinct from her other efforts – very much worth the wait and the bizarre roll out.
Plus, with writing credits from the Weeknd and PARTYNEXTDOOR, we counted contributions from four Toronto artists.
Top track: Higher
Rihanna plays the Air Canada Centre on April 14. See listing.
