Throughout High Road, Kesha maintains an exciting unpredictability as every song wanders into various genres, hooks, and vocal deliveries.
High Road is, much like Rainbow, a letter to those who are hurting but also a reminder to dance – a testament to the healing power of friendship, of joy, of loving, of going a little wild.
High Road works because of Kesha’s self-assurance and self-possession.
High Road appears to have bridged the gap between then and now with flair. Although we heart Kesha the party girl, we love the heart and soul she always pours into her music.
On ‘High Road’, she searches deep and emancipates the embodiment of sheer delight. Nothing about this record feels forced but instead encapsulates Kesha’s outlook on the crazy and weird rollercoaster that is life itself.
Her new record, and its nods to the bleary-eyed Ke$ha of yore, embodies a reclamation of the lightness once stolen from her.
An overwhelmingly triumphant pop offering that sees Kesha back at her best and having shit tons of fun while doing it.
The genre-hopping leads to the odd stumble here and there, but overall the never boring, often excellent High Road finds Kesha returning to the party on her own terms.
It is ... relentlessly entertaining - a vessel for the impressive vim and vigour of an artist who is many things, but never a bore.
With High Road, Kesha has found a way to double back and carve out a comfortable, if not happy, middle ground.
High Road is fun, frilly, and fanciful – and Kesha has more than earned this moment. It suits her.
It's designed to be a heady good time and it often is, even if there's a slight air of desperation in Kesha's hedonistic desires; at the album's wildest and dirtiest moments, there's a sense that her heart isn't quite into the revelry.
Kesha is a truly awe-inspiring artist, and continues to push through to produce something nuanced, interesting and fun.
High Road is an admirably unkempt pop album.
For most of its runtime we’re on a marvelous high where we’re at home in her world while still guessing where she’ll take us next.
High Road is unmistakably the work of the same glitter-pop artist who tore up the charts in 2009, but with a new sense of underlying self-awareness.
Kesha has balanced tender country songs with blinging pop throughout her career, but you may wish for ‘High Road’ to stick to one lane.
High Road as a whole is considerably hit and miss, tipping from serious to sentimental with considerable frequency, and it certainly doesn’t pack the rather ‘in your face’ punch that Animal did.
High Road is closer to the classic stompy bangers of her first two albums. Happily, she’s also re-embraced her boozin’, badass party girl persona.
High Road feels strained, scattershot, and loaded with tension, like someone trying to portray freedom and free-spiritedness–even a recovered sense of identity–who isn’t quite there yet.
Kesha is in transition, searching for that balance that can give her music meaningful identity in the future. High Road’s few shining moments — the vulnerability of her ballads and the wild sparks sprinkled throughout — suggest that balance is imminent.
Kesha's fourth album, High Road, struggles to find something interesting about her new flask-toting flower child persona.
#19 | / | The Young Folks |
#35 | / | Idolator |