Jesse Ware is no stranger to the sensual and sophisticated. Her music has consistently nailed the tone of “horny in a ball gown,” especially since settling into a more disco-influenced sound on That! Feels! Good! from 2023, and What’s Your Pleasure? from 2020: an album full of shimmery, dance floor-ready hits that was unfortunately released during the height of the COVID pandemic.
Now on her sixth studio album, Superbloom, Jesse Ware takes these themes to new heights. As she matures and is resolved in her sounds, the yearning is very obviously diminished while the self-assuredness in her own sexuality and sensuality is turned up to full volume. But she’s also not afraid to break from that for a more somber moment.
Whereas previous albums have been about dream building and crafting mirages for a listener to escape to, Superbloom is grounded in a reality of Ware’s own. It’s a place, a state of mind, a manifestation of Ware’s relationship. In and on Superbloom, she embodies her passion and self-assuredness enforced by various gods and goddesses.
Fans of Ware will already be familiar with the album’s two singles, “Automatic” and “Ride,” two tracks that very clearly set the tone of what Superbloom is all about. I often feel that the singles selected for album rollouts don’t do the album justice but in this case, I think they’re perfect precursors to the experience Superbloom will provide.
On “The Garden Prelude,” we are first lured by ethereal piano keys to this new, clandestine reality that a listener can feel not everyone is lucky to experience. As soon as we’ve stepped into this alternate plane we’re thrown into “I Can Get Used to This.” A disco romp full of heat and tension. “I Can Get Used to This” is both a sentiment of Ware’s and a sermon to listeners that this world could be their destiny, too.
When we arrive at the titular “Superbloom,” we see Ware on a mission to spice up a sexual encounter, “You know me the best of all/Let’s play unpredictable/You know your way around me/Yours since the day you found me/We could be anything, strangers tonight.” I don’t know about you, but even as a woman in her late 30s, marriage and spousal roles are hot topics of pressure, but Ware has an innate ability to make them feel preternatural and erotic.
Aptly on “Automatic,” one of the album’s singles, she employs Colman Domingo as one of her Gods of Love to offer a reminder to the listener, “Do you know what you’ve got?/You’ve got a perfect woman/She treats you right/Keeps you satisfied/It’s automatic.” It’s also worth it to note that this is perfect casting—not many people radiate sex like Domingo.
The excitement continues in the blistering “Sauna” and buoyant “Mr. Valentine.” The former a tongue-in-cheek number focusing on stamina. “Mr. Valentine,” which begins with a loop of “aha, okay,” sounding as though it’s clipped from a ’60s song but reminds me of Trick Daddy’s 2000 release titled “Shut Up.” I checked: neither are official samples on the song, but the soundbyte illustrates just how much fun and joviality Ware is having on this album.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Ware’s all-star collaborators on this album. Most songs were produced by Barney Lister (Olivia Dean, Rachel Chinouriri), as well as Jon Shave (Charli xcx) and Kid Karma (Shygirl, salute), with efforts from storied Producer Stuart Price (Madonna, Dua Lipa) and James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, fellow schoolmate Florence Welch, Fontaines DC, and Gorillaz). Songwriting and production are a chicken/egg situation for anyone not lucky enough to be in the studio for recording, but through the music, anyone can hear the communication between both sides is well-oiled.
With intention, “16 Summers” is the obvious outlier on the album. It is where the internal conflict of ambition and parenting take center stage. A contentious and fragile battle, especially for women, that even this iridescent alternate reality cannot take too lightly. “I know what it means if all my dreams/Are keeping me away from you/I just close my eyes and now my life’s in double time/Come hold these hands you’re slipping through.” Ware has referred to this track as “deeply personal” one she had been “scared to perform” likely because as a mother of three, the subject matter doesn’t hit close to home, it is home.
There are mutterings about where Ware’s next project will sonically go, but I’d rather focus on the present. As she continues to grow as an artist and person, the music has followed in her natural instincts. Regardless of what life throws at her, she’s able to, with her selection of collaborators, to turn any daunting new chapter into an adventure to explore. Using her life as a jumping off point for her creativity, she will continue to craft new worlds for her listeners to get lost in, a direction many artists would be wise to take.
Superbloom is out now.
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