Album Review: Sincerely, by Kali Uchis
Kali Uchis sketches the full emotional compass of Sincerely and hints at just how wide her range could still grow.
While some artists build a name only within their scene bubble and others provoke love-or-hate reactions far beyond it, there is a third type: born crowd-pleasers, such as Kali Uchis, who are almost impossible to dislike yet still largely unknown both within and outside their genre. That is baffling, because this singer with Colombian roots possesses a voice that once turned Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston into global icons. On Sincerely, every single song lands so cleanly that first-time listeners are left blinking in disbelief: “Never heard of her—wow—and she already has five albums?”
That was exactly the reaction whenever we let Kali newcomers hear any fragment from the record over the past few days. “It’s Just Us” feels like watching a portrait of two lovers, with every vocal stroke laying down fresh color and contour. “All I Can Say” revives both the early- and late-’60s at once with doo-wop harmonies and vintage organs, turning Uchis into the Sam Cooke of the MP3 era. In “Territorial,” she flips Elvis Presley’s “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise,” purring “look like an angel/talk like an angel” and sending pulses racing—no rapid-fire BPM required.
What matters, instead, is her attitude turned into sound waves: feelings must be allowed to run free. Routines, rules, and careful sequencing, she warns, kill romance. “I’m an old-school romantic/call me crazy if you want/forget the rules to play… Take off your cool now!” Modern flirting teaches us never to let go because everything might swerve at any moment, yet Kali’s chorus—“Lose My Cool”—argues that falling in love has never been about staying cool in the first place.
With the tender heat of a new mother who has just lost her own, the thirty-year-old glides into rarefied octave peaks. Almost every track carves out a few bars where she jumps registers— the bridge of “Lose My Cool,” the two-minute mark in “Sugar! Honey! Love!,” the opening seconds of the album itself. Where other voices turn icy at high altitude, Uchis keeps glowing, each song spotlighting a different shade of love: the instinctive bond between parent and child in “ILYSMIH,” the playful courtship of “Daggers!,” the inward search of “Heaven Is a Home.” Longing for a vanished era supplies yet another facet: brocaded Sixties film soundtracks, Seventies Chicano soul, all of it re-imagined in English and made to cradle every other emotion swirling through the set. A Daptone-affiliated band will even handle support on her U.S. tour. From “Territorial” onward, the running order layers retro harmonies one step at a time, until glitter-soul fuses with soft-pop on “Angels All Around Me,” “Breeze!” and “Sunshine and Rain”—the last of which would surely floor Scarlett Johansson.
“Fall Apart” is the R&B slow-burner where she asks the right questions: “Do you love me when I’m difficult? …when I’m down and out? …when I’m not prettiest?”—probing lines delivered with a composure that bridges sleek production and genuine soul. Slip on headphones and you’ll catch feather-light “shoo-baa-doo” backgrounds in “For: You,” a groove that would slide neatly onto Selena Gomez’s latest record.
Originality never means ignoring lineage. The widescreen glamour nods to Shirley Bassey; the satin glide of “Silk Lingerie” makes Lana Del Rey an invisible godmother (the comma teasing what follows silk). Annie Lennox’s phrasing flashes through “Territorial,” “Daggers!” shimmers with Sade’s poise, and listeners who love Alison Goldfrapp will feel spoiled throughout.
“Breeze!” astonishes with a shambling back-beat beneath a fifteen-voice choir, co-written by Al Shux, the studio hand behind “Empire State of Mind.” “Fall Apart” lets Durand Jones drummer Aaron Frazer, a Mellotron, and a wonderfully plain reminder—nobody needs to be perfect to be loved—share the spotlight. Sometimes the hook catches instantly, as in “Sunshine and Rain”; sometimes the rhythm drags you under, as in the trip-hop-washed “Sugar! Honey! Love!”; often a lyric glints, like “When time is a thief/I won’t let him rob me.” Familiar retro-soul heavyweights Leon Michels and Homer Steinweiss apply a final polish to the instrumentation.
Visually, Kali retains the pink hues of her recent artwork; lyrically, she abandons the Spanish of her last project, and musically, she trades bubble-gum urban gloss for soul that resonates deeply in the past. She wraps the record around her late mother, embracing gratitude for life, its hardships, and all.
A few cheeky ruptures or wilder beat experiments might have pushed the album even higher, and her voice dominates the mix so totally that enjoyment depends on whether you find that timbre irresistible. Technically, she is a powerhouse, and these songs read more like diary entries than pop products. She has already tasted global hit status once, with “Telepatía” in late 2020; everywhere except certain countries seemed to notice. Surely that ends here.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Lose My Cool,” “Fall Apart,” Breeze!”