At the beginning of his career, it felt a little difficult to determine exactly who Miguel was and where he stood among other male R&B singers. As good as his second album was, Kaleidoscope Dream still felt a little empty, and it wasn’t until 2015’s Wildheart that we began to really get an idea of Miguel as an artist. The soulful, layered production with a strong hip hop influence was refreshingly quirky, which are all traits that continue on War & Leisure, his most focused effort to date.
On the summery ‘Pineapple Skies’, the singer namechecks Stevie Wonder, but it’s Wonder’s former labelmate Marvin Gaye (as well as Sly Stone) who is a more apt vocal comparison, as Miguel sounds silky smooth with just the right amount of raw soul power.
The production manages to create a pleasing balance between crisp programmed drum sounds, layered instrumentation and ample use of delay and reverb effects that help create a sense of space. Caribbean influences also find their way into several of the tracks, such as the laidback soul of ‘Banana Clip’, while the Travis Scott-featuring ‘Sky Walker’ continues the woozy psychedelic feel showcased on Wildheart standout ‘Coffee’. Guitar – nearly always highly distorted – also features prominently, resulting in an old-school blues-rock feel when combined with the rawness of his delivery, such as on shouter ‘Wolf’, or slow-burn anthem ‘City of Angels’, though the production never feels anything but modern.
Miguel has never sounded as sure of himself as here, his sexual come-ons less sleazy and more mature, even when chanting “I wanna f…all night, say it!”, on ‘Come Through and Chill’. Though the subject matter is reliably bedroom-focused, the album finishes with the overtly political ‘Now’, a stripped back ballad in which he addresses the “CEO of the free world”, though the statement doesn’t get much deeper than that.
8.5/10
