Eighteen-year-old Atlanta songwriter Raury is exactly the type of performer that makes record companies salivate in 2014. Though the sound of his full-length debut Indigo Child is tough to pin down, listening to his music easily conjures comparison to beloved acts of this generation: André 3000, Bon Iver, Kid Cudi, Frank Ocean. He is reminiscent of Lorde, another teenage shuffling disparate interests—rap, folk, EDM—into something logical. And like Lorde, Raury has a nose for the sky-scraping moment and knows how to make a big song seem personal. If you had to bet on an artist-on-the-verge becoming a big star, there are worse bets.
I**ndigo Child serves as a perfect introduction to Raury’s style-sampling aesthetic, as well as the blizzard of sometimes-undercooked ideas he brings to the table. On “Superfly”, he borrows liberally from the melody of Kid Cudi’s “Day 'n' Nite”, switching from rapping to reaching for the heavens with a soulful breakdown. “God’s Whisper” aims unabashedly for an exultant campfire singalong and mostly nails it; “Wildfire” is a string-laden track resembling something a teenage André 3000 would have made if he had never met Big Boi, steering Raury into a trance-like climax where he paraphrases Lil Wayne’s “The Block Is Hot”. Though the ideas come from a variety of points existing on the pop music spectrum, Raury’s warm production helps Indigo Child achieve a general coherence, a testament to his ability to organize the swirling nature of his sound.
Indigo Child shows all the hallmarks of promise, but the music doesn't always live up to the prevailing comparisons that have been thrust upon the teenager. Though many of Raury’s ideas are strong and linked together in interesting ways, sometimes he doesn't quite hit his mark. Album closer “Seven Suns” is an eight-minute, staring-at-the-sun style melter that feels gratuitous, while the record's other large-sized, orchestrated moments feel a little hollow ("Chariots of Fire") with lyrics that take on the form of of empty teenage philosophizing (“I shared my cigarette with her/ I fucked her every Wednesday evening/ Why do you always use that word/ When you don't even know its meaning?”). Overall, Indigo Child is an intriguing blueprint for Raury's talent, and watching Raury continue to put it all together going forward will definitely prove fascinating.
