In pop music, using lyrics to create an identity at the start of your career isn’t especially uncommon, but to do so the way that Angel Hilson does in her debut release “Just This Once” isn’t something most players are able to pull off. Through a selection of verses that push her vocal further than a lot of young singers are willing to go right from the start, we’re able to appreciate and understand the importance of the medium to Hilson’s artistry, and in “Just This Once,” she makes quite the case for her sound being worthy of taking a second look at.
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The voice this singer is rocking in her virgin recording is absolutely the star from beginning to end, but there are a couple of moments in which she works the beat in a manner that a lot of vocalists on her level just wouldn’t feel the need to. It’s not that she’s being overindulgent, but instead that she’s feeling out the space in this arrangement as to see how much room she’s really got to spread out and develop a harmony. There’s nothing wasteful in this mix, which is saying something in this age that seems to have forgotten efficiency.
Hilson never fears getting wild with the beat, although I would say now that it feels like she’s holding back a bit in the chorus. This could be just to avoid the pitfalls that come with going extra hard on a climax that already feels stately thanks to the instrumentation, but it’s more likely that she’s trying to save a little something for her next release. By teasing us with a taste of what’s still to come from her work, she makes the most of a potential a lot of her peers don’t know what to do with.
With regards to the production quality here, you can’t go wrong with a master mix that has the level of polish this has on it, and I have to assume there was a lot more work put into the detailed effort on the board than the status quo in modern pop calls for. There aren’t many players who want to put the effort into making intricacies contributive to a single, but this is an artist who wants to be involved in every aspect of the message she’s sending (which in itself is a throwback to the standards of an older generation in R&B).
Just This Once
Listen to Just This Once on Spotify. ANGEL HILSON · Song · 2022.
As independent and fierce as the storyteller who presents it to us today, Angel Hilson’s “Just This Once” makes me very curious to hear and see what this singer and songwriter is going to come out with next, as her voice and talent for creating an intriguing pop narrative are not exactly common commodities in this genre or any other. This is an era in which being excited about R&B goes without saying, but she’s putting a panache on her sound in “Just This Once” that I hope to hear many times over, and I think a lot of other critics who check this out are going to agree.
Clay Burton