When Bieber dissociates into secure territory, alongside rappers Gunna, Sexyy Purple, and Money Cobain, on a trio of completely satisfactory however in any other case impersonal, paint-by-numbers R&B love songs, the specter of an algorithmic Spotify playlist looms. Nonetheless, he’s at his most emotionally absent, and the album at its most irritating, when Druski interrupts on a few skits. The comic, who in his personal work ping-pongs between charming and daft, is ostensibly recruited to supply help, counsel, cultural context, and stealth promo for Black & Delicate Cigars. That Druski is steadily credited with popularizing “standing on enterprise” doesn’t, nonetheless, work as a legitimizing element; as a substitute, it introduces a cynicism that clashes with a lot of Bieber’s ethos on SWAG and threatens to undermine the whole factor. In response to Druski’s, frankly, silly evaluation that “Your pores and skin white, however your soul black, Justin, I promise you, man,” Bieber is smart sufficient to supply a curt “Thanks,” and nothing extra. Sadly, he isn’t but sensible sufficient to have allotted with the concept altogether.
However Bieber’s haecceity as a pop star, and SWAG’s animating power, is that still-undeniable voice. He aerates midtempo opener “All I Can Take” with percussive breaths that inevitably recall Michael Jackson, and winks, coy and pitched-up, on “Yukon,” a spotlight regardless of sounding prefer it might’ve originated as a demo by Drake, Frank Ocean, Ed Sheeran, or some twisted mixture thereof. “Dadz Love” is an enigma and, improbably, a rousing one: A breakbeat reward break, punctuated with affirmations from Lil B and cherubic interjections from Bieber, who turns a declarative “It’s dad’s love” into an existential query “Is that love?” and again once more. These moments, SWAG’s riskiest and most surprising, are its most rewarding. The pair of acoustic sketches “Glory Voice Memo” and “Zuma Home,” disarmingly susceptible in prayer and supplication, could seem the furthest afield. However for longtime Beliebers, each will echo grainy movies of a preteen Bieber busking on the steps of the Avon Theatre in his hometown of Stratford, Ontario: eyes to God, guitar in hand, desperation pouring out. There he’s!
After decade of holding a relentless posture of apology for wrongs largely self-inflicted and way back eclipsed by these of friends blessed with far much less scrutiny, Bieber himself stays an impediment to new audiences who may in any other case discover themselves compelled by this model of him. In an period that feels dominated by disaffected, hardhearted males, Bieber is overwhelmed with emotion and propelled by unselfconscious craving. In a tradition that feels completely bereft of grace or generosity and even risk, Bieber appears to glimpse some. SWAG feels as a lot about what he has let go as it’s about what he’s searching for to change into: a lovely lover, a cheerleading husband, a believer so determined for heavenly forgiveness that he cedes the mic to Marvin Winans for the album’s closing prayer-in-song. Who amongst us wouldn’t like to go in peace?