An expansion from her debut album, ‘Bird’s Eye’ showcases more, yet ends up with lesser quality. Within Ravyn Lenae’s sophomore record, there is an attempt to go for a tighter form of sonic and melodic variance that, unfortunately, doesn’t land the way it should.
When ‘Hypnos’ was first released back in 2022, there is a captivating aura that Ravyn Lenae embodies, something that she has honed and refined further from her EPs as well as from her guest features from other artists. A magnetic singer whose trilling vocals smear with absolute efficiency and soul that keeps a consistent mark, especially when she dips into organic and synthetic production that passes within a broad range of neo-soul and alternative R&B tapestries alongside writing that exposes different aspects of writing tonalities that she lands well, but not exceptional, as it is clearly a debut that opens up to roads that she can pull herself into. Following that up a few years later with more guest features as well as her sophomore record, ‘Bird’s Eye’, she finds herself continuing further into more sonic variation.
Through the record that runs around just over 35 minutes, there is a clear variance that pops up almost immediately. Whether that be the production that DJ Dahi takes control over, the sound that tilts into Pop Rock as well a bit of Glitch Pop and Reggae on a few songs, and the overall array of melodies becoming much more focused and tight as Ravyn Lenae still shows off her gorgeous vocalizations all around this project that eventually leads to some nice highlights. Such as the punchy opener ‘Genius’ with its pop-rock guitars and drums that help make a solid foundation for the vocal melodies to strike, the cozy backdrop of ‘One Wish’ with the vocal harmonies, choppy vocal sampling, and both Ravyn Lenae and Childish Gambino’s wonderful performances, the sharper melodic throughlines of ‘Love Me Not’ alongside the shuffling grooves and playful singing, the nimble R&B tone of ‘From Scratch’ with the combination of moody strings and operatic samples that complement the somber mood of the guitar strums and Ravyn Lenae’s pretty singing.
But yet, the overall ideas to focus on tighter melodies while expanding to other sonic ventures are laid down in plain sight, the execution of these ideas sadly doesn’t succeed as much, as the cracks start showing more and more once the album is observed further. Some of the issues that drag things down are the production and the melodies: the former being due to a lot of the textures within a lot of these songs just falling flat, as a swatch of the programmed beats and synths ending up sounding stiff and sour in comparison with the organic instruments that at least carries some fuller texture behind the melodies, the other part of the record that unfortunately doesn’t carry sticky and intriguing quality as despite the intent to go for a sharper structure, the song craft just don’t pay off well and it doesn’t exactly give Ravyn Lenae much room for her vocals to explore. But perhaps the bigger issue is the writing, painting an arc where the relationship just falls apart completely and the protagonist tries to move on past that fickle ex, a generally simple arc that does carry some big metaphors, imageries, and some internal reflections to give it more detail amidst the conflicting romance - but the execution to the storytelling ends up flimsy and narrow where the emotional resonance eventually flounders as the album goes on, not helped out by the production and the melodies falling apart on the seams.
As much as ‘Bird’s Eye’ continues off to where ‘HYPNOS’ has placed down: expanding up the genre diversions and tightening up melodic structures, the end result just stumbles compared to what was done on the debut project. Ravyn Lenae carries her vocal presence as much as she can, but the rest of the elements from her sophomore album dip in quality for the most part, with the writing, production, and melodies just giving less captivating flair overall. Through the bird’s eye view, there’s indeed more to showcase, but within those finer details, the flaws start to show themselves outright.
Favorite Tracks: ‘Genius’, ‘One Wish (feat. Childish Gambino)’, ‘Love Me Not’, ‘From Scratch’
Least Favorite Track: ‘1 of 1’