Asa - Beautiful Imperfection (Album Review)

The world is rated ‘X’. Liberty is threatened, there are phoney wars and economic imperialism, and injustice is prevalent as is bad governance. The world is rated X as it was when Asa’s first eponymously titled album dropped, describing some of our concerns with a soulful poetry and acting as an antidote to the creep of glocal pessimism. ‘Beautiful Imperfection’, the name of Asa’s new album, would have been better suited to the former. Social consciousness is eschewed for the pursuit of happiness, the very thing that along with her distinctive vocal is what captured our attention and filled us with anticipation.

As the artist herself professes, this album is very different to the last, with different concerns – it represents a new direction. She says: “I had a lot to talk about – social and political issues. This time, I felt different: I wanted to create something that would help people come out of sad moods and feel uplifted. It is different from the first album; it has more brightness.”Beautiful Imperfection is a collection of songs about love, a sort of love generally rather than actually. Absent are genuine moments of rapture or heartbreak. But ‘Baby Gone’ is a beautiful ballad and is the best moment on the album. ‘The Way I Feel’ is a nice soulful pop number and ‘Maybe’ represents a nod to the first album with its musings on personal freedom and self-expression.

Musically the sonic experience is much like the first album, though there was a welcome rawness to the production on the former, where this album is more polished and lush. The singer-songwriter that is Asa is not so apparent on Beautiful Imperfection. There is less of her guitar and much less of her as a commentator. This is really a pleasant album, sweet and undemanding, but where is the young woman who made pop with pep, because the world is still rated X.