For a group whose members’ solo albums often seem like the work of one perfectionist mastermind, Silk Sonic are an impeccably in-sync alliance. Ever since Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak first announced their collaboration with March’s ‘Leave The Door Open’ – a sumptuous single that features the former’s best vocal performance to date – it was clear that this was a team of two retro-obsessed musicians revelling in a deep admiration for one another.
Here was a song that showed off the pair’s intuitive chemistry with playful humour (“If you’re hungry, girl, I got fillets”), studied musicianship and a shared crate-digger mindset. Its ascendant bridge, formed from a collection of rich chord changes which meld into each other, is far from subtle in its references, but that’s part of the fun. A combination of soft piano lines, swooning strings and a glockenspiel revive the sound of seminal Philadelphia soul groups such as The Delfonics and The O’Jays, who brought symphonic arrangements to the mainstream in the early 1970s.
But Mars and .Paak’s deliberate approach to pastiche is consistently validated by their extreme attention to detail, meaning that their debut album, ‘An Evening With Silk Sonic’, is far from a two-man recreation of a specific era. The record’s nine rich and colourful tracks delight in all-out pop hooks, lush harmonies and conversational verses that occasionally – but knowingly – lean towards musical theatre. Yet every element feels intentionally placed: in a recent Rolling Stone interview, the duo bragged about how “dozens” of versions of this album got scrapped simply because a minor production note wasn’t right – proving that they take their craft more seriously than most.
| A1 | Silk Sonic Intro |
| A2 | Leave The Door Open |
| A3 | Fly As Me |
| A4 | After Last Night |
| A5 | Smokin Out The Window |
| B1 | Put On A Smile |
| B2 | 777 |
| B3 | Skate |
| B4 | Blast Off |
