Album Review: Devotion & the Black Divine by anaiis
anaiis has channeled her vulnerability into a quietly triumphant strength, turning life’s tribulations into art—the album’s conceptual ambition ties together into a mythic self-portrait of an artist.
anaiis started publicly with Before Zero (2018), marking her emergence as a vulnerable voice in neo-soul/alt-R&B, then expanded her palette through Darkness at Play (2019) and This Is No Longer a Dream (2021)—each record exploring grief, identity, and reclamation. During these phases, her voice was already her signature: supple, expressive, often walking the fine line between softness and tensile strength. She’s always worked in liminal spaces—between genres, between introspection and confession—building a world that resists easy categorization. It’s not a reinvention so much as a reclamation, where a moment where the album-maker she has been thus far converges with who she might become.
From its opening moments, Devotion & the Black Divine expands like a carefully curated social media feed from a bygone era. Valencia-filtered memories spread, each one a lo-fi weft-faced with grainy snapshots of longing—seamlessly flowing from one to the next. anaiis uses this warm, nostalgic aesthetic to draw the listener into an intimate world, one where personal reflections and raw emotions are artfully arranged for us to witness. She’s less the tentative newcomer and more the evolving auteur. This album feels like the first work in which she leans fully into her mythic impulses, taking the shards of what came before (loss, longing, identity) and singing them into something more definitive. Her earlier records were experiments in emotional geography, but here, she stakes out her own terrain with more confidence.
The album is structured as a blend of fashion tableau and theatrical revival, with the opening numbers draped in muted graphite greys that gradually bloom into electric purple soul. It begins in a somber palette: “Something Is Broken” finds her voicing a lifetime of pain and disillusionment in subdued tones. She confesses, “There’d be no remedy, no prayer, no better, no saving for me,” an admission that frames the album’s initial mood of vulnerability and brokenness. Following this, “Deus Deus” acts like a hushed prayer or interlude—its refrains of “Deus, deus, deus” repeated in echoing layers—flickering like a single candle of hope in the darkness, accompanied by a soulful reggae drop. Before “Dreamer Too” gets here, faint hues of optimism seep in; this song’s gentle, dreamy atmosphere signals that the healing process has quietly begun, as if dawn is starting to break on an otherwise grey horizon.
As the record progresses into its middle act, it blossoms with more vivid emotion and confidence. “Moonlight” marks a clear turning point, trading desolate introspection for a slow-burning empowerment anthem. anaiis reclaims her identity with pride—“Black, and you know how to walk in your power/Proud, ’cause you know you’ve put in all the hours”—delivered in a soft, declarative cadence that feels like a gentle manifesto. The arrangement remains understated yet soulful, letting her affirmations take center stage. Immediately after, the mood grows more tender on “In Real Time,” a hushed ode to being loved and comforted in the present moment. This track’s warm minimalism offers a brief respite, surrounding the listener with the sense of safety that comes from genuine companionship.
At this juncture, the album’s most ambitious centerpiece, “Call Me (A/B),” unfolds in two contrasting movements. The first half (A) finds anaiis offering unwavering support to a loved one lost in despair (“Call me... call on me,” she repeats soothingly over minimal instrumentation), while the second half (B) suddenly swells with sensual intensity, as if longing has burst into full bloom. Her voice grows fervent and layered; she pleads to be taken “higher than psilocybin,” reaching for a love-induced euphoria that borders on the spiritual. This bold two-part structure is slightly jarring in its sharp mid-song shift, yet it’s mesmerizing—effectively plunging the listener from quiet solace into a lush, intoxicating reverie. After this cathartic high, Devotion & the Black Divine pivots toward its final act with a newfound perspective and emotional depth.
The outing shifts focus to themes of new life and self-renewal, broadening the narrative beyond the self. “Here Comes the Sun” poignantly captures the isolating shadows that can accompany profound change—likely inspired by the early trials of motherhood. “Time is moving slow... I know you feel alone,” anaiis sings softly, laying bare the quiet loneliness and doubt that linger in midnight hours. It’s a stark portrayal of vulnerability, complete with references to “a mother’s cry, a mother’s strain,” yet the song gradually ushers in hope as gentle rays of optimism break through the dark. That hope fully blossoms in “My World (Beyond),” an earnest tribute to newfound purpose. anaiis declares her devotion to someone who has expanded her world—“My world revolves beyond me, I found the courage to love”—transforming her sorrow into a profound sense of joy and responsibility. These late-album songs cloak anaiis in richer, more radiant hues, as if the music itself were fabric gradually dyed by her shifting moods.
For all the album’s thoughtful curation, a few songwriting choices come off as slightly heavy-handed. This often doubles as affirmations—uplifting but at times almost too direct—and certain refrains repeat a bit more than necessary. For instance, the mantra-like “spent my whole life unlearning the lies” hook in the opener is potent at first but verges on overemphasis when intoned so many times. Similarly, the extended chants of “love me baby” in the second half of “Call Me” walk a fine line between hypnotic and overstated. Another minor hiccup is the placement of “Green Juice” late in the tracklist—a love-fueled reverie whose cryptic romantic yearnings (complete with a flirtatious French coup de foudre) slightly disrupt the album’s late-stage thematic flow. These are small blemishes on an otherwise cohesive canvas. The album’s conceptual ambition ties nearly everything together into a mythic self-portrait of the artist: each song reveals a new facet of anaiis’s identity—broken, dreaming, loving, or healing—and adds depth to the overall narrative arc.
Despite its few missteps, Devotion & the Black Divine delivers a flowing, structured reflection that feels both intimate and far-reaching. By the end of the record, anaiis has channeled her vulnerability into a quietly triumphant strength, turning life’s tribulations into art. She lands with the soft power of Chekhov’s Nina delivering a last, haunting monologue on stage—intimate, tremulous, and resolute. As a whole, the album succeeds as a soundtrack for digital nostalgia, transporting those into an intimate, filtered realm of reflection and renewal. In evoking the act of scrolling through cherished sun-faded posts, each track becomes a vignette that invites introspection and catharsis.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Dreamer Too,” “Moonlight,” “Call Me (A/B)”