The Soft Parts – innuendo (Album Review)

innuendo is the second studio album by The Soft Parts, created by Houston-based artist Robert Dilemma. Seeing that this was a jazzy kind of album, I was excited to review, since I don’t believe I’ve reviewed a jazz album for the site yet. Regardless, no more distractions, let’s get into it!

The album begins with “riviera”, which already gives you a vision as to what the album is going to sound like from here. The bass playing is one of the dominating factors throughout the entire, always making its presence and keeping the pace of each song. Whether it’s overt or more hidden in the background, just know that the bass is working to keep things moving. The other dominating factor is the layers of keyboard sounds. As a keyboard player, I have to give every inch of my respect for what the work that was done on this album.

Speaking of work, this album does not include the type of virtuosity that you would expect to hear in a jazz album, which Dilemma has been open about. But of course, playing really fast and changing time signatures every 30 seconds doesn’t make a jazz song, does it? What I hear in this record is a lot like what the post-rock artists were doing in the 90’s and 2000’s, in which they focused more on mood and timbre rather than chords and shredding. Dilemma doesn’t use his instruments for solos or to show off in any capacity, but rather to layer everything together so that all the elements of the song compliment one another.

However, I will have to admit that I do have issues with the record. Now, I must preface this by saying that I did like all of these songs to an extent. My main issue is the length of most of the tracks. Obviously, for those who know me, I love long songs, many over the 10 minute mark. But, as I always say, you need to justify a song’s length, unless you want to be stuck in musical purgatory where you’re forced to listen to a 30-minute live version of “Dazed and Confusion” (yes, that exists). Songs like “riviera” and “baby blue” were the only ones I felt that were perfectly timed. The others, especially “abyssinian”, could’ve been cut short about a few minutes. It really just got a kind of a while, which disappoints me, as I really do love the atmosphere that the record was trying to create.

Regarding specifics about the other songs, I’ll be brief.

“style & substance” picks up the pace a little bit, which I find to have the best keyboard playing on the entire album. “abyssinian” is a bit similar to the last, though a little more funky this time around. “baby blue” is my second favorite song on the album, feeling it to be the most unique. However, my ear did rightfully catch something, that the piano melody is nearly identical to the one on “Alone (reprise)” by Wee, which was sampled by Freddie Gibbs on his song “Scottie Beam”, you can’t miss it. However, mistake or not, it’s a catchy melody.

“mystique” is another good song that lives up to its name, as Dilemma knew how to get the mood straight for it. Some of the record’s best keyboard work can be heard here as well. The percussion elements of the song are also really good and hard to resist. Lastly, I find “innuendo” to be quite good for an ending, especially with the way the orchestral sounds moved throughout the song’s runtime.

All songs ranked on a scale of 0-4:

1. riviera – 4
2. style & substance – 3
3. abyssinian – 3
4. baby blue – 4
5. mystique – 3
6. innuendo – 3

SCORE/Good: I really wanted to give this a higher grade, but again, some time management would be worth looking into. Other than that, I found this to be a really cool album. This really proves that you don’t need to be a virtuoso musician to create a great vibe, even one that may make you want to move at times. I want to see more material from this project in the future and I will look very much forward to review them, so best of luck!

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

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