Album Review: Son of Spergy by Daniel Caesar
Son of Spergy is Daniel Caesar’s most candid and conflicted project to date. Its highs are deeply moving, but uneven pacing and over‑reliance in spots keep it from being the definitive statement.
A self‑inflicted penance or a prayer whispered through clenched teeth: Daniel Caesar’s fourth album feels less like a release than an examination room. He has spent the past few years walking back from the edge. After the mixed reception of 2023’s Never Enough, he apologized for the drunken 2019 Instagram Live rant in which he defended influencer YesJulz. He wondered why Black people were so “mean to white people,” acknowledging that he’d been “canceled for being drunk and foolish in public.” Son of Spergy arrives with that humility baked in. At first listen, there is no grand announcement. The opening track, “Rain Down,” begins as if we’ve walked into a rehearsal. Over a few chords, Sampha and Caesar share a simple litany—“Lord, let Your blessings rain down/Lord, let Your blessings rain down on me.” It’s a childlike invocation, but by the second minute, the repetition feels half‑plea, half‑performance. Caesar’s voice curls around “Your blood is all I need” as if he’s convincing himself. Sampha’s falsetto floats like a choirboy echo. The prayer is sincere, yet there’s an undeniable desire to be seen.
Caesar threads scripture through earthly longing with little regard for the usual boundaries. On “Have a Baby (With Me)” he doesn’t plead for romance; he bargains for legacy. “Have a baby with me,” he sings repeatedly, not because the relationship is thriving; the verses admit the partner has “already left” and that years of waiting have made her restless—but because leaving “something here” is the only dream left. The imagery is blunt; parenthood becomes a way to outwit mortality rather than an expression of love. A similar weariness permeates “Call on Me”: he offers to be the provider, promising that she can come to him when her “pockets [are] empty,” yet the chorus returns to the question “What have you left for me to do?” These aren’t love songs so much as negotiations about purpose. Even the tenderness of “Baby Blue” is complicated by a hymn‑like outro that cites Calvary and wonders what good the narrator has done to deserve such love. The sacred and the carnal blur until it’s hard to tell if he’s addressing a lover or God.
For all his talk of blessings, Caesar doesn’t pretend to be pious. “Root of All Evil” is an earnest attempt at self‑discipline. He asks, almost naively, “What have I done? What should I do?/Forces of evil pull me away from you,” then flips into a refrain that is both childlike and damning: “Am I a man or a beast?… Somebody please, discipline me”. The chorus undercuts any hope of victory: he knows he should stay away from temptation, but he’s “too drawn to the evil”. Elsewhere, in the acoustic vignette “Who Knows,” he confesses that he might be a coward hiding behind generosity, admitting he’s “incompetent steward of all of that sweet, sweet power.” These admissions feel less like polished lyrics than diary entries set to melody.
The album’s most striking moments come when he lets collaborators magnify his ambivalence. “Moon” features Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, whose spectral harmonies turn the song into a conversation with a conscience. Caesar howls at the moon, admitting he’s not who he wants to be “at the moment, maybe soon” and wonders who will “be my Jesus.” In the second movement, the track descends into “Violence,” where he notes that “man is but a pile of dust.” Bon Iver’s voice drifts like a ghost, transforming repentance into sound design. “Touching God,” the album’s emotional summit, brings Yebba and Blood Orange together as a kind of desperate choir. Caesar laments that there is a God “withholding His help,” that this deity made him, and yet hates himself. As the trio trades lines about feeling unheard, they slide into the Lord’s Prayer—“Thy kingdom come… Thy will be done”—without warning. It’s a rare moment when the sacred language isn’t borrowed for effect; it sounds like a genuine attempt to touch something beyond them.
This tension between confession and control animates the mid‑album sagas. “Sign of the Times” starts with the youthful hope of kissing someone and picturing Madonna and her child, but quickly shifts to near‑fatal car accidents and survivor’s guilt: he recalls his friend’s Tesla going up in flames and credits God for getting him out in time. That juxtaposition (romance, tragedy, providence) is as jarring as it is honest. “Emily’s Song” acts as a thank‑you letter to an ex who acted as a mirror. He remembers nights in Miami and tears at the Grammys, acknowledges that addicts “never change,” and decides he’ll never regret the relationship. It’s one of the few songs where gratitude outshines self‑loathing.
On the album’s back half, Caesar turns from confession to confrontation. “No More Loving (On Women I Don’t Love)” is a profane declaration of celibacy; he’s done with meaningless relationships and lashes out at “power‑tripping” men who lie “on God above”. The hook paraphrases Psalm 23—“Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil”—but his delivery is full of grit, more of a battle cry than a prayer. “Sins of the Father,” another duet with Bon Iver, takes that anger inward. He sings of carrying the weight his parents placed on him and thanks a heavenly father whose love exceeds his earthly one. The chorus admits: “I’ve got all this hate in my heart/But I got no place to put it” and begs for “alchemical transmutation,” as if turning pain into something helpful were a matter of chemistry. He even confesses to forgetting his own child’s birthday and dismisses the significance with a shrug.
The album could’ve been a definitive statement if there were more variety in sound and structure. Some songs lean on repetition that feels lazy rather than meditative—the endless “rain down” in the opener or the refrains in “No More Loving” risk turning prayer into filler. The sequencing also drags; after the charged trio of “Touching God,” “Sign of the Times” and “Emily’s Song,” quieter tracks like “Who Knows” and the bluegrass‑tinged “Moon” reprise can feel like detours rather than deliberate breaths. And while the genre blends are ambitious—touches of gospel, country, and even baroque bluegrass—the production often retreats to safe mid‑tempo grooves. Still, the vulnerability is there, whether you believe him. Where 2017’s Freudian shimmered with polished neo‑soul and Grammy‑winning duets, Son of Spergy strips away that sheen, revealing an artist at war with himself.
Ultimately, this record works because Caesar doesn’t pretend his faith is fully formed. He doubts, curses, apologizes, and sometimes relapses into self‑aggrandizement, but he lets us overhear it all. There’s a conversational pulse—one weary believer talking to another about why he keeps trying. Whether the album succeeds musically is secondary to the act of wrestling. It’s hard to imagine these songs dominating radio the way “Best Part” once did, but perhaps that’s the point. Caesar isn’t performing for pop success; he’s searching for a way to believe in himself again.
Solid (★★★½☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Root of All Evil,” “Touching God,” “Sins of the Father”