On their 2013 debut no world, the L.A. duo inc. no world (formerly inc., also formerly Teen Inc.) were more comfortable in the shadows than in the light. Directors of mood first and foremost, brothers Andrew and Daniel Aged crafted a consistent set of earnest if at times anonymous blue-eyed R&B. no world was the product of two studio rats who had spent years honing their craft, reverent to plush ’80s R&B but with a foot in the ’00s. Their vibes-above-all approach played to their strengths: They were not deconstructionists but faithful recreators and Andrew’s gentle vocals were treated more like a texture blended into the mood.
As Light As Light, their first album in three years, plays it straighter. Andrew’s voice is pushed closer to the front of the mix and the production carves out a deeper pocket for his vocals. Whereas no world featured repeated mantras that unfurled at their own pace, As Light As Light places an emphasis on more traditional verse-chorus-verse songwriting. On “The Wheel,” everything revolves around and builds up to its chorus, where all the heft comes from Andrew’s vocals, injected here with a heat previously only hinted at. When he latches onto a chorus that’s got legs (“Waters of You”), the brothers instinctively milk it for all its worth. But moving away from the chant-like repetition that worked so well on no world exposes some pedestrian songwriting: Andrew fails to breathe life into the love-as-water metaphor on “Without Water,” and when the Ageds don’t peel back the layers, Andrew’s verses tend to get lost in the shuffle (“In Your Beauty”), a song that should have taken off at least one if not two accessories before leaving the house.
Andrew’s devotionals, given extra weight now that he demonstrates his range as a vocalist, are forever in a state of adoration. “I have fears, I have fallen, and I’ve lost my way back home/But I’ve never had to wonder about the love you’ve shown,” he sings about a long-time lover on “Without Water.” These are songs of connection, not conquest; they celebrate emotional support, not emotional drain. “We’ll stay up laughing [about] what we thought was true,” he imagines on “In This Dream,” a late-album slow-burner with a hollowed-out warmth. Andrew sings with a generous optimism that feels hard-earned, the kind that emerges after a realization that all other approaches hold intimacy at arm’s length.
Near the end, its songs become sparse and less adorned—even rootsier. There’s an honest-to-god slide guitar on “In Love,” which shimmers with a lightness characteristic of inc. no world’s former sound but with a stronger focus on songcraft. Much like the rest of As Light As Light, even though the song contains fewer elements, the production feels thicker and less prone to being carried off by the slightest breeze. What remains, however, is an overriding sense of anonymity that blunts the impact of Andrew’s sentiments. While Andrew has a knack for sticky hooks, his vocals rely on nuance more than natural charm—in a crowd of whispery R&B vocalists, he just doesn’t have the range to stick out. But his ability to spin on the same line and draw out different meanings works for inc. no world, who are smart to cast off some of their ambient textures in favor of something more elemental. They remain immaculate R&B players who understand the pleasure of patience and the power of delicacy.
