Music Reviews: Justin Bieber, Wet Leg, and Clipse

'Swag' by Justin Bieber

★★

"There's a solid album somewhere in Swag that's a slow-burn collection of hazy-day R&B," said Chris Kelly in The Washington Post. Unfortunately, Justin Bieber, at 31, can't help reminding us that his life has lately been a dramafest amplified by media attention. On one lighthearted interlude, he even samples his widely memed recent rebuke to photographers on his tail: "It's not clocking to you that I'm standing on business." Bieber "can still deliver ooh-babies as well as anybody," as he does so here over "shuffling beatbox beats, gently weeping guitars, and warm-hug synthesizers." But it's "difficult to meet the music on its own terms" because of the star's insistence on foregrounding his celebrity woes.

Like two of Bieber's previous albums, Swag "reveals the tender and quirky R&B singer he's always been at heart," said Mikael Wood in the Los Angeles Times. The difference is that Swag "feels much more improvisatory," borrowing from SZA the tactic of projecting the messiness of life by mixing in unpolished tracks, including a short voice memo of a "gorgeous" gospel ballad. Swag isn't a perfect album, but it's "shaggy, disarming, and often quite beautiful."

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'Moisturizer' by Wet Leg

★★★

"Whatever party Wet Leg are heading to, it sounds like one worth crashing," said Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone. On the band's second album, frontwomen Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers don't just defy the sophomore jinx. Four years after "Chaise Longue," the indie hit on which the pair "banged on their guitars and sneered hysterically cheeky one-liners about the moronic menfolk who cross their paths," they "prove they've been partying harder, caring less, and meeting sexier idiots." With the exception of a dud of a token ballad, this 12-song set "keeps everything fast and frisky." The track "Mangetout" isn't even a single yet, but it's "a damn-near perfect dance-punk summer jam."

Impressively, Moisturizer is also more varied than the band's debut, said Bill Pearis in Brooklyn Vegan. "Teasdale can do the cheeky talky bits in her sleep, but she also belts it out, gets sweet and coquettish, lets her falsetto fly, and screams with the best of them," while the spotlight-shy Chambers steps up to sing two of the finest tracks. "Second albums from buzz bands used to line the used bins at record stores, but Moisturizer is a keeper."

'Let God Sort Em Out' by Clipse

★★★

Clipse hasn't put out an album in 16 years, yet "no rap duo since has captured their same dynamic energy," said Jordan Darville in The Fader. This comeback effort finds brothers Malice and Pusha T again achieving "effortless synchronicity" while changing their focus: Malice, who embraced Christianity in 2009 and renounced the duo's own glorification of their drug-dealing past, comes across here as "Jacob wrestling with the angel, reconciling his faith with his first earthly calling," and that drama becomes the album's emotional core.

Fellow Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams, "who has always felt like an honorary third member," produces and contributes vocals on four songs. But this is the brothers' show, and "it's their candor that makes the music impressive." No matter the subject, Clipse "delivers every bar with frigid, biting clarity," said Kiana Fitzgerald in Consequence. Spreading peace is not part of the brothers' agenda. Much of their new material enacts "a patient, methodical deconstruction of their contemporaries, foes, and detractors." Even so, they're "setting a top-notch example of what it means to age gracefully into your craft."