Album Review: Rebecca Black - SALVATION

Diving into her own messier humanity allows Rebecca Black finally going all out for the better. Despite the brief runtime of ‘SALVATION’, the project offers some of the strikingly well-realized tracks that puts Rebecca Black into her distinct pop lane.

After venturing through the relationship and artistic turmoil of her last record, Rebecca Black aims to take things a lot more fun and catty. Within ‘SALVATION’, she indeed goes more into reckless territory, where that sense of bratty personality in the writing and performance may showcase a messy side of herself, but it’s a side that allows her to sound freeing and joyous, especially with all the queerness that she gloriously embraces wholeheartedly. Never compensating for anybody’s satisfaction, going all out for her own salvation.

That messy embrace adds so much in these songs, where Rebecca Black shamelessly leaning on that bratty side allows the poised energy of the melodies to be heightened, all built with fully touched electro-pop dance grooves with hints of guitars, organs, strings, as well as glossy hyperpop textures to saturate the sticky tunes and ecstatic vocals of the project. The grimy edge of ‘TRUST!’ with the guitar sections to drive home Rebecca’s effortlessly slick delivery, the sweetly addictive hook that permeates the rumbling drums and gleaming synths of ‘Sugar Water Cyanide’, the brief yet striking sense of self-confidence of ‘American Doll’ the booming low-end grooves, the absolutely impeccable crescendos of ‘Do You Even Think About Me?’ with the raving beats and shuddering synths that builds up perfectly to the hook and ends with Rebecca Black just going all out vocally, and the string and organ accented closer ‘Twist The Knife’ that gives an dramatically effervescent atmosphere that Rebecca can fit well with her soaring singing.

If there is an issue, it’s more on how a few cuts just don’t stand out (the rather wonky structure of ‘Salvation’ and the overrealiance of the bursting synth melodies of ‘Tears In My Pocket’) and just how the project could’ve afforded to add more tunes to give more detail to the songwriting and compositions that are frequently excellent but feels like there should be more to allow the record to hit even harder and wilder. But despite the brief structure, ‘SALVATION’ is still jam packed with some of Rebecca Black’s most striking and addicting songs to date, where her excellent vocals and charisma definitely sells the shamelessly reckless queer attitude exceptionally well. This might be a short-lived salvation, but has enough to keep that liberating spirit alive for the foreseeable future.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘TRUST!’, ‘Sugar Water Cyanide’, ‘American Doll’, ‘Do You Even Think About Me?’, ‘Twist The Knife’

Least Favorite Track: ‘Salvation’