Album Review: Tori Kelly – God Must Really Love Me
2 min read
Tori Kelly is an artist on a consistent upward trajectory. Since growing a fan base on YouTube and competing on American Idol in 2010, her career has gone from strength to strength. She’s won multiple awards, seen chart success with more than a handful of singles, and even appeared on the silver screen in the Sing franchise. Tori has a lot of accolades for someone barely two decades into their career. Now, after a two year gap, she’s returned with new album God Must Really Love Me.
The album opens with a sweet intro title track that leads into Without You. The g-funk instrumental and Tori’s soulful voice carry the track home, chimes and synths accentuating the gorgeous backing vocals. Control and Fly shine with their backing also. The rising harmonies in the latter that layer the chorus are truly heavenly. Pray For You opens with a disjointed drum machine beat and Tori hitting her highest register. There’s an ominous feeling to the track until the smooth guitars enter at the pre-chorus and the track really comes together. By the end, it has become a beautiful ballad, one of the best on the album.
Bird continues the heartfelt calm with an acoustic led ballad where Tori lays out all the worries on her mind and ruminates on what it would be like to be free as a bird. It’s not a ground breaking vision of freedom, but she sells the sentiment entirely. Hurts So Good is a classic waltzy soul song, while Mine misleads with false starts of piano and then guitar before finding its groove at the chorus. Smooth Landing utilises Tori’s higher register once again for a beautiful chorus set around lush piano and excellent beat. Bliss concludes the record with a low-key stomp-clap rhythm and picked guitar, boosted again by immaculate backing vocals.
God Must Really Love Me is a class soul record. From start to finish you can physically feel the emotions that Tori is conveying, and the great range of arrangements gives the album enough intrigue to keep you hooked. It’s another fantastic album from Tori that’s well worth your time.
Writer and Musician, Ryan Bulbeck has been published with a number of online publications, and has worked with a myriad of great artists, both as a performer, and as a producer. His most recent band The 295 are still active, playing shows around the UK.
