If modern R&B were a teen melodrama from the 1990s, SZA would be the sassy chick with a Trapper Keeper full of receipts on everyone. She is the empress of the revenge dream; in her songs, which sound like angsty but beautiful diary entries, nasty rivals get dragged for fun, and ex-lovers get fed before it is stated in very vague terms that their blow is weak.
SZA surprisingly makes petulance, and Carrie-level bloodlust sounds damn near angelic in the video for the third solo from her excellent new track, Shirt, where she nonchalantly murders people while at a cafe while singing, “Feel the taste of resentment/Simmer on my skin.”
Her sharp register, a loopy cadence filled with acrobatic turns and twists, is astonishing. She smoothly moves between pockets while hurling jabs that are met with taut, automatic-stop accuracy. Her music doesn’t come across as careless.
SZA Delivers Intimate Revelations Through Her Albums
But in an SZA track, there is always a sideways route to transcendence: meaningful digressions with savory asides. Naturally, almost everything appears direct, concise, and punchy. The labor and sacrifice are also immediately apparent; they can be heard in the opening few segments of every bop.
SZA’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to CTRL from 2017 is even better than S.O.S. The songs seem lighter and bolder. Important themes such as retaliation, nostalgia, and ego come together in the most personal and intense self-disclosures since the confessional booth on Real World.
But the most touching sequences in S.O.S. appear during contemplative cuts. The mood is both beautiful and enchanted, ripe for SZA’s hurt, if not harsh, memories, and she sings that “my past can’t escape me” in the song “Blind,” which features an acoustic guitar and a gorgeous orchestration. Additionally, “Gone Girl” is brimming with meditative energy.
