Five years is an eternity in music. Ctrl, the much-loved 2017 debut of SZA – New Jersey singer-songwriter Solána Rowe – was an alt-R&B tour de force whose characterful immediacy played extremely well with both the mainstream and points leftfield. Delays – pandemics, SZA’s frequent guest spots, label shenanigans – have repeatedly stalled the release of its sequel.
Clocking in at 23 tracks, SOS might well register as a distress signal, with SZA searching for a through line connecting her album’s multiple producers, its grab bag of genres and disparate featured guests. Two years ago she threatened to do “a dump” of unreleased tracks; although SOS is not that, it treads a fine line between swashbuckling versatility and a lack of cohesion.
