Dua Saleh: Review of Earth and Wires – a passionate fight against a global disaster with incredible caution | Music

Spoken poetry about Prometheus, screamo rap, sun-dappled guitar, airy falsetto … and this is the first track on Dua Saleh’s Of Earth and Wires, their second album based on real and fictional challenges. The Sudanese-American singer (best known for collaborating with Travis Scott and playing Cal in Netflix’s Sex Education) takes the fear of climate change and AI control, as well as the civil war in Sudan, in a post-apocalyptic sequence to a fictional story at its heart. background history.

That’s a lot of ground to cover, but the opening track, 5 Days, tackles it with real guts, twisting from a melodious sound reminiscent of Perfume Genius into a hot flash of melancholy. It promises a fun, challenging ride – but Earth and Wires is more cautious than its imagination might suggest.

Instead, Saleh gives us a glimpse of a hot, earthy, short story. A Sudanese proverb serves as a vague warning on I Do, I Do, a slow jam with beautiful ouds, while Chiguma – alternating falsetto with Bon Iver – gently spins images of biblical rebirth and changing seasons. Firestorm is a love song set against the flames of LA, but it lacks the heat: Saleh’s classic R&B songs are made of nostalgia, referencing a tribe of burning tires turned into clothing. Burying these big trees means that the heartfelt hope of the closer to the chorus of All Is Love doesn’t get as far as it should. Saleh has a unique artistic voice, but the moments of crisis and liberation give life to their stories.