Album Review: Chloe Bailey, ‘In Pieces’

From a raunchy remake of a Nina Simone classic and an ill-advised lollipop video to explosive performances of standalone singles like “Treat Me” to the enervating discourse about every facet of her public persona, the road to Chlöe’s debut solo LP has been one of the most compelling narratives in recent pop music memory. As frustrating and befuddling as this cycle of triumphs and catastrophe was, Chlöe’s unwavering drive and undeniable talent kept us all watching and listening and rooting for her from various distances. In Pieces, the first full-length solo project from either sister of Chloe x Halle, is a bit of a mess, albeit a promising one. Stained by breakneck transitions, annoyingly banal songwriting, and collaborations completely bereft of chemistry, In Pieces struggles to consistently allow Chlöe’s daring production choices and stunning vocal performances to take center stage.

A smattering of snapshots of Chlöe at various stages of a tumultuous relationship, In Pieces attempts to chart the complexities of balancing emotional, sexual, and romantic wants and needs. From the portentous choir-like background vocals on album opener “Someone’s Calling (Chlöe),” a reimagining of a 1927 jazz standard, to the histrionic mélange of the sacred and the secular on vengeance-battling lead single “Pray It Away,” In Pieces has a throughline of gospel influences that, for some reason, Chlöe almost completely ignores. Had Chlöe used her own musical and spiritual relationship with gospel to ground her ruminations on desire and conflict, In Pieces could have been infinitely more interesting than the actual end product. Instead, the Swarm star opts for some of the most rudimentary songwriting the mind can conjure. “Worried” is a strong showcase of Chlöe’s skills as an arranger, but with a drab melody and nondescript lyrics that undercut any attempt at sincerity or vulnerability, the song is basically white noise. “We so dumb, we so motherfuckin' toxic / We should stop this, we gotta stop this / But that passion is so good to me,” she sings in “Looze U,” a hodgepodge of boilerplate lyrics that read like late-2010s vibe&B Mad Libs. There’s also that ill-fated Chris Brown collaboration (“How Does It Feel”) that further sours the tracklist with an insultingly lazy sample. Moreover, in a move that expertly encapsulates the oxymoronic energy of In Pieces, “How Does It Feel” sources its introduction from an interlude titled “Fallin’ 4 U,” an expletive-laden manifesto of female empowerment and independence. As well-intentioned as the interlude may have been, hearing “I'm my own person, there's days I might / And it's a choice, it's a choice I will make / My choice,” right before a collaboration featuring a serial abuser and misogynist is the kind of tasteless tomfoolery that occurs when an album completely rejects any kind of sensible pacing.

At just under 40 minutes, In Pieces simply cannot afford to have such a high proportion of its songs feel so lyrically and thematically flaccid. Chlöe’s debut album moves so quickly that songs have little time to settle in the listener’s brain before being overshadowed by the whiplash of an asperous transition. Only Chlöe’s penchant for maximalist pop&B cold tie together “Pray It Away,” the falsetto-entrenched dancefloor banger “Body Do,” and album standout “I Don’t Mind,” an Afropop-indebted ode to romantic instability that would lend itself well to a remix from the likes of Rema or Rosalía. Sometimes, that penchant is not enough to sugarcoat the album’s downright terrible sequencing. The “Looze U”-“Told Ya”-“Cheatback” section of the album boasts the record’s most jarring transitions. Save for the fact that “Told Ya” is a disastrous kiss-off to the haters that feels oddly obligatory given the album’s focus on relationship trauma, the Missy Elliott collaboration is a noisy, incoherent wreck. “Told Ya” is the worst of what Chlöe’s fearlessness can produce; for better or for worse, she is willing to mix and match disparate sounds, and, sometimes, magic happens. Take “Cheatback,” for example. A Future duet that brings an element of country-pop to the In Pieces soundscape, “Cheatback” shouldn’t work at all, yet it does.

Just like the road to the album, there are a few instances on In Pieces that remind us of why Chlöe still demands our attention in spite of all the clutter. “Feel Me Cry” presents a smart parallel of heightened emotion by way of both crying and climaxing, while “Make It Look Easy” is the album’s most effective vocal performance. On that track, Chlöe centralizes most of the song’s energy in the verses, eventually riding those pulses to a tease of ultimate catharsis that’s instead traded for a bridge that lifts the song into Final Fantasy battle cry territory. Rousing orchestral strings and fervent layers of background vocals prevent “Make It Look Easy” from falling into the stagnancy that plagues so many of the album’s other songs. The album’s closing and title track, which features a co-writing credit from Mikky Ekko, is another impressive ballad — a reminder that Chlöe is undoubtedly one of the most skilled vocalists of her class. In Pieces is literally in pieces. There is a solid record here amongst the slop of generic writing and chaotic sequencing, but the record is trying to move in too many different directions at once. Thus, Chlöe leaves us with a debut album that confirms that her promise isn’t imagined, but her struggle to properly catapult that promise into fully realized potential makes everything feel disjointed.

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Key Tracks: “Make It Loos Easy” | “Body Do” | “Feel Me Cry” | “I Don’t Mind” | “Cheatback”

Score: 60