Angel Haze burst onto the scene in 2012 with her mixtape Reservation, a raw display of unforgiving rap, and many expected her to naturally go on to lead the way for women in the genre. She had other ideas though, claiming recently that singing has always been her first love, and after heavy leanings into pop-rap and EDM on her debut Dirty Gold, she’s ready to jump ship completely on her second album The Flowers Are Blooming Now, putting her rap tendencies on the back-burner.
“Candlxs” is the first taster from her sophomore album, and although she does get proceedings started by spitting a few bars in that whiplash style of hers, she then switches her mode to evocative singer for the next three and a half minutes. The song is apparently written in ode to her now ex-lover Ireland Baldwin, so it’s full of heart-tugging lines like “I think I’m obsessed with you, if the world was ending soon I don’t think I could take it” as flutes flutter dreamily in the background. It’s as pretty and solid as pop gets, and it sounds like perhaps this newly-found focus will benefit her going forward. She sounds at ease with her new identity.
#Peace.Love.Candlxs
