While his excursions into the mainstream exhibit his star power, he crawls inside himself on the album, reducing the impact of his timbre with forlorn uniformity. It saturates his art to the point of subduing his otherwise dazzling tone to pedestrian ranges. He longs for an impassioned connection, and that longing is evident throughout, aesthetically. (For a little perspective, there’s a song called “Life Support”.) Embrace is an appropriate word for this album Smith is constantly reaching out for someone, seeking to close the gap and provoke sensuality. In the former, he sings, “Now I got you in my space/ I won’t let go of you/ Got you shackled in my embrace/ I’m latching on to you.” In the Lonely Hour takes that sentiment to new heights. It would’ve been hard to forecast the murky depths that lied within In the Lonely Hour strictly relying on Smith’s contributions as a guest on Disclosure’s “Latch” and Naughty Boy’s “La La La” (soul records masquerading as pop/dance), but it would’ve been very easy to anticipate his affinity for togetherness. In the Lonely Hour only knows one way to spin its grand thesis. Its fatal flaw is not its singular mindset, but the monotonous execution of that mindset. It hums along at one bleak, naively hopeful tone that often loses affect.

It’s musically stark, too, compressing chord progressions and melodies into subdued acoustic guitar and piano riffs draped occasionally in strings. It spends its time trying to minimize emotional space (for solidarity’s sake, Smith dreams about getting mugged outside a lover’s house), physical space (he wants to hold hands during a one-night stand), even relational space (he pushes a beau to leave another lover). It wallows not because of isolation but because of a glaring lack of intimacy and empathy. In fact, it isn’t about loneliness at all it’s about the painful, unavoidable desire for suffocating closeness fostered by unrequited love. In the Lonely Hour, Sam Smith’s passionate major label debut, isn’t as much about loneliness as it is about distance. This post is in partnership with Consequence of Sound, an online music publication devoted to the ever growing and always thriving worldwide music scene.

Sam smith in the lonely hour tracklist