Admirers of the deliberateness of the debut may find Electric Light a bit too slick and modern, yet that's precisely the album's appeal: Bay never seems like he's pandering; he sounds thrilled that he has a chance to make the kind of layered, genre-bending pop that he wants to make, and listeners may well find that freedom alluring.
A step up for an artist determined to come across more credible. But the singer-songwriter still sounds more John Mayer than Frank Ocean on his second record.
/ | Billboard (First Half) |