Chris Ward, aka singer/producer Tropics, never quite found his sound on Parodia Flare, his atmospheric 2011 debut. Its aesthetic—part-chillwave, part-shoegaze—felt like a wistful backdrop for Wham!-era George Michael or Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay without the standout vocals. Ward seemed content hiding his words behind thick layers of coffee-shop acid jazz and old-school R&B. Though he updated these sounds, the result was tentative; debut albums should make bold statements, and Ward’s direction was unclear.
For Parodia follow-up Rapture, Ward has cut back the haze, showing a more vocally assured presence as he ponders broken romance. His newfound confidence is ironic, given the record’s lovelorn premise: When your heart aches, you generally don’t want to discuss what happened or how you contributed to the mess. You want to sit somewhere alone, just you and your thoughts and a few Roberta Flack records. Throughout Rapture, Ward asks sensitive questions that will feel familiar to anyone who has loved hard enough.
He openly explores his hurt on Rapture, and it’s obvious he’s still searching for a resolution. "Could I have changed the things that stopped it?" he ponders on "Hunger". "How did I get to feel so helpless?" "How can you let go?/Give it time", he decides on album closer "Not Enough". His words are more prominent than anything on Parodia, reflecting the scattered musings of a man clinging to the past while trying to figure out how to move on. "I’m through telling all these lies," he croons midway through the title track. "Love is a hard thing to capture, when you keep it all inside."
At its core, Rapture details Ward’s quest for understanding and his eventual resignation. There’s an overwhelming sense of isolation that you feel in its hollow production and barely-there ballads, the spacious electro-soul supporting Ward's despondent whimpers of regret. Rapture conjures an atmosphere of confessional intimacy: You can imagine Ward sitting by himself at a piano, notepad in hand, culling torment from a house that once held affection.
In the album's second half, the music breaks down and becomes more abstruse as Ward gains personal clarity. Transitional tracks like "Perfume Kinship", "Gloria" and "Torrents of Spring" recall the abstract approach of Parodia, but with a decidedly sexier feel. Overall, Rapture is a decent step forward for Ward, one that shows his progression as a composer, but without enough variation, the album grows sappy over repeated plays. Heartbreak records, like Beck's downtrodden 2002 opus Sea Change or Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago, need some central magnetism to keep pulling you back. Rapture’s nocturnal R&B plays well enough at moderate volume, but the grief-stricken mood becomes a bit stale without noteworthy tunes to revisit. Rapture is ultimately an honest effort devoid of staying power.
