Sydney Bennett has always stood out.
Early in the days of Odd Future, the rambunctious, teenage rap crew that crashed into the industry by way of the Los Angeles suburbs, Syd (then Syd tha Kyd), was by far the most intriguing figure relegated to the background.
As the group’s only female member — and its only openly gay artist until Frank Ocean came out in 2012— Syd’s calm, cool indifference about Odd Future’s casual misogyny and homophobia provided the movement with something resembling a voice of reason. And as Odd Future matured in the following years, Syd’s musical contributions to the collective evolved beyond rudimentary rap beats with the debut of her full band, neo-soul project, The Internet.
Although Syd’s whisper of a voice has grown in confidence over the past few years, she still hadn’t gone solo — until now.
Her debut solo album, Fin, is the clear product of an artist struggling to find her voice, both literally and figuratively. Where The Internet offered lush, jazzy instrumentation, Fin opts for sparse, spacey rap beats that land somewhere between ’90s R&B and modern trap. The drums are hard-hitting, and the synthesizers blend with her cloud-like vocals, floating high above everything else.
“I’m drowning in doubt and frustration/ Can’t sleep ’cause I’m anxious/ Counting sheep and all,” she croons on album opener “Shake Em Off,” sounding both beautiful and insecure.
While the album’s more traditional beats are a far cry from the off-kilter oddity of Odd Future or the gorgeous, throwback soul of The Internet, they finally give Syd a chance to step into the spotlight. She’s never had a particularly strong voice, and while it was prone to getting buried on previous projects, here it stands out. Over the clean, straightforward instrumentals of Fin, Syd’s wavering, vulnerable voice is an asset, not a weakness — and it shows on songs like the slinking R&B anthems “Got Her Own” and “Body.”
Unfortunately, while Fin is excellent mood music, as an album it’s little more than that. It certainly works as a soundtrack for drunken late night trysts, played just loudly enough to smother soft moans. But for active listening, the 12-song LP is a little too pretty and shallow to stay interesting.
In fact, when up-and-coming Atlanta rapper 6LACK shows up on late-album highlight “Over,” it’s a welcome breath of fresh air, a little bit of grit in an otherwise pristine soundscape.
“Love was broke, love was lost/ Love was poor, section 8,” a line with more character than many on previous tracks.
But to really get a feel for the kind of album Fin is, just listen to Syd herself:
“For me, this is like an in-between thing — maybe get a song on the radio, maybe make some money, have some new shit to perform,” she said of the project in an interview with Pitchfork.
And in the end, Fin is a battle of expectations. But if your standards are the same as Syd’s — low — the album will easily surpass them.
