Sweetener

Ms. Grande backs up her statements with song-and-dance mastery. ... She’s her own choir, support group and posse. While a few guest vocalists (Mr. Williams, Nicki Minaj, Missy Elliott) provide a little grit for contrast, Ms. Grande sails above any fray, past or present. Her aplomb is her triumph.

Ariana Grande’s fourth and most delightful album.

Keeping the ratting trap beats across most of the tracks keeps the record bang up to date, but adding in flourishes of experimental instrumentation sees Ariana going so much further.

Confident and empowered, Sweetener illustrates once again that Grande is an unparalleled pop chameleon.

Because it deviates from what fans expected, Sweetener takes a couple rotations to sink in, but if you give it time, you’ll see Ariana Grande really threw it down when she took down her ponytail.

Like much of Sweetener, the song is musically sparse but encompasses a kaleidoscope of vocal tones. It is here, four albums in, that the true multitudes of her voice, and by extension herself, blossom.

An album that coheres in a way other Ariana Grande albums don't, which means Sweetener is something of a double triumph: she's come through a tough time stronger and better than before.

That light Grande promised has helped lead her down the path toward her best album yet, and one of 2018’s strongest pop releases to date.

The title track and R.E.M. smush together her penchant for musical theatre and 90s R&B. Everytime bridges tight melodies with synths like a large elastic band being plucked, and God is a Woman feels almost tantric, with guitars and harmonies spaced between sweaty beats.

The songs are shiny and catchy of course. ... Yet there’s an uncommon sense of self-possession to this album--a kind of ecstatic calm--that sets it apart from everything else on Top 40 radio right now.

Grande can really sing, which is a treat in this Auto-Tuned era. Her four-octave range has been compared favourably to Mariah Carey’s, but her style is far more delicate and understated. She rarely unleashes full power blasts but her delight in singing is transparent and her producers take full advantage, layering her all over the tracks.

Ariana’s core fanbase are bound to find an instant, sugar-rush of pleasure in this fascinating side-step from an artist who – until now – has made her name by stomping down the traditional pop path.

Grande’s new sound, the Williams-produced Not-Bangers, only make up half of the album. These standout tracks are interspersed between standard pop tracks. ... That’s not to say that the Bangers on Sweetener are bad--it’s more that they belong in previous era of Grande and they spoil the flow between songs. Sweetener may not be the dawning of a new age for Ariana but it could be a step towards somewhere weird and wonderful.

For the most part, though, the formula results in an album that's both consistent and refined, a reflection of Grande's growing awareness of herself as an artist and her place in the world.

It’s rare for an album with so many stunning moments to suddenly become so aggressively mediocre. Still, the highs of Sweetener outweigh the lows. But with such lofty highs, it’s hard to be content with the album that is and not think about what the album might have been.

Grande is adding herself to several distinct sonic palates, putting her own indelible stamp on fundamentally disparate productions while letting them exist in different spaces. It doesn’t sound as free and natural as much of her previous work, but maybe that awkward hollowness is the point.

Ultimately, beatmaker Tommy "TBHits" Brown outshines the veterans, co-producing two of the record's more engaging tracks--"Better Off" and "Goodnight n Go"--which are inexplicably relegated to the end of the record. Those songs manage to accomplish what the rest of the album attempts: bringing a new fire to pop-R&B's familiar formulas.

Seven of the 15 tracks here have been drowned in producer Pharrell Williams’ bubblemint bounce – at points, it’s in danger of sounding more like his record than Grande’s.