(FMLY/Island Records)The Colombian-Canadian singer-songwriter delivers a deliciously dark debut
As the pop landscape becomes progressively bolder and more crowded, it becomes more difficult for any new artist to make an impact. The bandwidth is saturated. Billie Eilish is a hard act to follow; she has rewritten a lot of rules. “Attitude” is standard among R&B singers, and is just as often a pose. Shock value depreciates. But on her debut album, the breakup-fuelled Before Love Came to Kill Us, Toronto’s R&B star-in-waiting Jessie Reyez makes herself unforgettable pretty much from the word go.
Her album, out on 27 March, opens with a toss of her mane. “I should have fucked your friends, it would have been the best revenge,” Reyez seethes – you can hear her eyes are narrowed. A little later in the song, Reyez imagines
shooting that cheating ex. “If I blow your brains out I can guarantee that you’d forget her, if I blow your brains out, I can kiss it better.”