Diana Ross still sings supreme at 77

Singer Diana Ross.

SOUL

Diana Ross THANK YOU (Universal).★★★

Few figures tower over popular music like Diana Ross, who can go for 15 years without releasing an album â€" longer without one containing original material â€" and yet still seem enshrined in our collective consciousness. Now she finally returns to recording with Thank You, the mood of which is both celebratory and valedictory. The celebratory side leaps from the lyrics’ bubbling â€" sometimes cloying â€" optimism, the anthemic choruses (such as that of Tomorrow) and the dance-floor beats (including, unsurprisingly, If the World Just Danced). The valedictory element lies in her 77-year-old voice sometimes being less obedient than I’m sure she’d have liked, perhaps bringing down the curtain on a stellar career.

The album was mostly penned by Ross in collaboration with a veritable committee of songwriters. That it was made during the COVID-19 lockdown presumably accounts for the overwrought Time to Call, apparently about calling on one’s maker in time of need, with strings gushing all over her thin-sounding singing. Beautiful Love is about a mother’s adoration of her child, and while it’s pretty enough, the sentiments are too baldly expressed. Better crafted is All Is Well, with its brimming, almost naive optimism, even if it’s another where Ross’s vocals labour. The best of the ballads is Just in Case, the one track in which the sense of strain in her voice compounds the emotional veracity.

Having borrowed a title from John Lennon for Come Together, Ross stitches it to a hollow anthem, riddled with spoken-word and humming interludes that might go down a storm at a Hillsong jamboree but will irritate more people than they elevate. Among the songs flirting with spirituality, In Your Heart is the pick, proselytising less and riding on a more intriguing groove.

Speaking of Lennon, The Answer’s Always Love leans on Imagine (“You say I’m just a dreamer, but I believe it’s a good thing”) to such an extent that it would be a nudge tacky were it not so well-intentioned. The musically more interesting Let’s Do It suggests we “make life better together”, which is commendable enough, although it’s another overly bald statement on an album that must set a record for the recurrence of the word “love”. The title track and the breezy I Still Believe come closest to harking back to Ross’s heyday, and that’s how I prefer to remember her.

INDIE

Snail Mail, VALENTINE (Matador/Remote Control), ★★★★½

Lindsey Jordan was just 18 years old when she released Lush, her debut album as Snail Mail. That brilliant record was a scrapbook of unfettered teenage emotion, filtered through cuttingly precise songwriting and staggeringly sharp guitar work. Now she’s 22, Jordan’s outlook is a little more mature but no less bracing on her second record, especially as it’s largely inspired by a stint in rehab. The intoxicating Ben Franklin, one of the lead singles, introduces a darker edge to the Snail Mail sound, swapping the guitar for sparkling synth. Valentine encompasses fuller orchestral sounds, but some of the album’s most striking moments echo simpler bedroom production, such as Light Blue, on which a tinny acoustic guitar backdrops Jordan’s gently shaking vocals as she sings “nothing’s going to stop me now”, before strings and keys enter. Jordan’s influences â€" music, literature, life â€" are all evident on these sensitive, erudite songs, as she shows her scars and reclaims her narrative. Along with the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, Jordan is part of a rising school of young American women making some of the most original, compelling and accomplished music in indie rock today. GISELLE AU-NHIEN NGUYEN

SOUL/AMERICANA

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, THE FUTURE (Stax), ★★★½

Release number three from Nathaniel Rateliff, backed by the inimitable Night Sweats, is a real gumbo of an album: a collection of musical vignettes birthed from myriad styles within the wide-ranging roots genre. It skips fairly seamlessly from Louisiana-via-Nashville (the title track) to new soul (a good swathe of the record, thanks in large part to The Night Sweats’ solid horn section) and to thoughtful tunes set around Rateliff’s vocal: a voice that can change gear at a moment’s notice, moving from crooning to a jagged and almost desperate shout.

It’s an album of light and shade, and indeed a decent departure from the band’s previous, more soul-leaning, dance-inducing fare. Simplicity is the key here: none of the album’s 11 tracks overreach â€" not surprising given, along with Rateliff and bandmate Patrick Meese, the album is produced by the likes of Bradley Cook (Bon Iver, The War on Drugs) and James Barone (Beach House). The standout is single Survivor, a minimally arranged song about hope, essentially, with an almost shouted refrain that appears as if from nowhere, and sinks into your ears, not letting go for long afterwards. The Future is a grower, worthy of further exploration. SAMUEL J FELL

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John Shand has written about music and theatre since 1981 in more than 30 publications, including for Fairfax Media since 1993. He is also a playwright, author, poet, librettist, drummer and winner of the 2017 Walkley Arts Journalism AwardConnect via Twitter.

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