Nourished By Time: The Passionate Ones review – committed, full-hearted post-R&B | Pop and rock

Marcus Brown is a diehard romantic. His second album as Nourished By Time is likely to be darker and extra dystopian than his critically acclaimed debut, however at its core stays a bloody, beating coronary heart. Absorbing and cinematic, The Passionate Ones expands Brown’s distinctive imaginative and prescient for post-R&B: his aching, tremulous, earthy vocals swim below rolling Baltimore membership breakbeats, flickering synths, gated reverb and uncanny looping samples. And all of the whereas, he makes a plea for large emotions within the face of a numbing world.Nourished By Time: The Passionate OnesBlaring as if from a busted speaker, opening observe Computerized Love transforms boyband-y platitudes – “my physique gained’t really feel nothing till my pores and skin touches you” – into lyrics with actual jeopardy, sharpened by the specter of looming societal collapse. Max Potential, an enormous 80s synth-rock quantity, co-opts company language to marvel on the ache of heartbreak, treating it as a fluorescent signal of life. Typically Brown sings with such wide-mouthed, full-hearted dedication that he might be laughing or crying, however single Child Child is witty and aloof, with informal talk-singing and a surfy guitar line as he requires a worldwide strike to “make the gravy practice cease”.A tongue-in-cheek interlude wonders aloud if The Passionate Ones might be a cult – one devoted to depth, drive, even optimism, over any ideology. To hook you in, it’s adopted by 9 2 5, a spirit-soaring tune of the summer time contender about inventive desires v greasy day job monotony. Actual ardour is treasured, Brown urges, shaking you by the shoulders, hoping you’ll see the sunshine.