It’s getting on for 4 years since Ariana Grande launched the loved-up Positions, a soft-focus celebration of her future husband, Dalton Gomez. On this loosely conceptual follow-up she unpicks that relationship’s speedy demise, whereas additionally contending with new love and the tabloid fallout from it. Lead single Sure, And? neatly sums up Grande’s angle in the direction of rumours and parasocial probing: “Your online business is yours and mine is mine/ Why do you care a lot whose dick I trip?”
The road is delivered with such restraint that its impression goes unnoticed at first. It’s a method that Grande, who possesses a voice that would strip wallpaper, makes use of all through, be it alluding to dishonest on the fluttering title observe, or asking for clemency on the wonderful, Robyn-esque We Can’t Be Associates (Look forward to Your Love). The latter’s juddering synths and perkier BPM are an outlier on an album that favours midtempo R&B, providing up house for Grande to experiment with luxurious vocal layering (The Boy Is Mine) and melodies as sharp as reduce glass (Supernatural). Refined and delicate, however with the correct quantity of chew (see the darkly hued True Story), Everlasting Sunshine seems like a clearing of the emotional decks.
