Continuing on from the success of her masterful 2020 release, That! Feels Good! is every bit as delightfully danceable as its predecessor, with more cheeky funk bass lines than you can wave a disco finger at.
By 2020, Jessie Ware seemed to have found a comfortable, if unflashy sort of fame. Three albums of dependably listenable pop had earned her a loyal fanbase big enough to secure European and American touring dates and the promise of longevity on the fringes of the British pop mainstream. A label deal with industry giant Island Records gave her access to songwriting megastars like Benny Blanco and Ed Sheeran, and Ware seemed to settle into her place in the British pop landscape, making occasional appearances in the UK Top 40 or even on the One Show. Nonethless, she was rarely talked about compared to the Adeles or the Dua Lipas of the world.
And yet, in the midst of the pandemic, Jessie Ware’s career dramatically shifted course. Her fourth album, What’s Your Pleasure?, did away with her previously broad-brush pop for scintillating, razor-focused dance music that fizzed with a newfound purpose – namely to recreate every inch of the clubbing experience right down to the smoking area and toilet cubicles. Indeed, the magic of What’s Your Pleasure? was in its powers of musical worldbuilding. To listen to those patient, swirling synth grooves and intoxicating bass riffs if so be swept away in a blissfully sweaty club, lost in the ecstacy of seemingly endless dance music. Closing track and soulful standout Remember Where You Are came tinged with the sweet melancholy of the silent taxi ride home.
In many ways, That! Feels Good! feels like an answer to its predecessor’s titular question. This album does away with What’s Your Pleasure?‘s moments of rumination in favour of explicit dancefloor diktats. “Stand up! / Turn around! / Take a bow!” Ware bellows on Beautiful People, seemingly relishing her role as party commander on chief. The title track opens the album and is about as unambiguous as album manifestos come: “Everybody gets a little modest and shy sometimes / Just remember, pleasure is a right!” Ware pronounces us in a lyric that lingers in the mind as the enthralling, pleasure-rich dance numbers start to come thick and fast.
For much of That! Feels Good!, Ware seems to be taking the Vulfpeck approach to music making: music trumps lyrics, immediacy trumps depth, groove is king. It’s a strategy that relies heavily on the quality of the music (for which the lyrics merely play a supporting role), but in the safe hands of an increasingly disginguished industry pro such as Ware, it’s a strategy that pays dividends. Lines like “Free yourself / Keep on moving up that mountaintop” on Free Yourself might sound clunky and clichéd on paper, but it’s difficult (and downright inappropriate) to put a magnifying glass up to the words as thumping piano riff and driving drum groove provides the song an immediate lift off. To listen to such a joyfully retro groove and not get swept up in the self-aware campness of Ware’s vocal performance is like showing up to a mosh pit hoping to find somewhere to unfold your comfortable camping chair. House-adjacent firecracker Freak Me Now is even more innately thrilling, Ware’s punchy hook finding home in a glorious, restless Daft Punk-esque keyboard riff designed to be played long into the night. Even more than the rest of Ware’s discography, this is the sort of roof-raiser that is will be best served live, no doubt to a dense crowd of whooping, carefree revellers. (Undertone‘s tickets are very much booked.)
Like all great dance music, bass is the secret sauce here. Strong bass lines are abound on That! Feels Good! most obviously on the title track and playful Shake The Bottle, a song littered with even more cheeky double entendres than is customary for Ware. A rumbling bass provides plenty of heft to funky highlight Pearls, a track suitably decked out with all the bell whistles – a seemingly endless hoarde of backing vocalists, plus a weighty strings section and excessive bar chime glissandos. Begin Again is grander still, a song that may owe a little too much to Another Star for some tastes but nonetheless provides the same pathos and sense of theatre as the work of His Royal Stevieness. The heavily orchestrated feeling of drama is apt for a song ostensibly about post-pandemic relaunch, and the gospel chants of “can we be who we were at the start again?” come with a tinge of vulnerability as the horns swell into a breathtaking final minute. It’s a song that manages to recreate the staggering magnitude of the world hurtling towards a new way of living, whether we like it or not.
That! Feels Good! is heavy on uptempo party fuel, but an exhausting onslaught of high octane jams it is not. Touching love song Hello Love offers a first chance to catch your breath, the heavy kick drums momentarily swapped out for a delicate bed of simmering congas and gently soaring strings. Lyrically, it’s a blatant attempt by Ware to slot into the newly-wed first dance canon alongside the likes of Thinking Out Loud or Marry You, but it’s also a genuinely heartwarming tale of old lovers reconnecting that’s worth swooning over. Towards the end of the record, Lightning is a more nuanced but no less beautiful change in pace. “I can give you all of me every night,” Ware languishes with trademark sensuality, her silky smooth vocals aided by a soothing wave of R&B backing vocals.
Satisfyingly, this sequel to What’s Your Pleasure? has a closing track that’s a worthy match for Remember Where You Are‘s unique allure. These Lips is the peppier, perhaps more optimistic of the two album closers, but nonetheless showcases Ware’s uncanny ability to create an instinctive sense of ending. There’s no need to process the words she is singing; the yearning of These Lips is palpable in the chorus, before Ware reigns herself back into a cheeky funk groove, never one to over-egg it. “I wanted the fade-out to go on for fucking ever,” she told Rolling Stone of the final moments, and who could blame her? The highs of the mellifluous grooves prior make tearing yourself away from the technicoloured fantasy world of That! Feels Good! a struggle. No, this album doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it provide much lyrical meat beyond the joys of dance and sensual pleasure, but equally there is absolutely no reason to for anything more from Ware. This album is a fun, unapologetic burst of escapism so visceral the outside world feels a little less vibrant in comparison when that final bass line disappears towards the horizon.