Anna Wise - The Feminine: Act II (2017)

Did I have any idea who Anna Wise was before listening to this album? Nope. But I had heard her sing. And I bet many of you have too. She was a featured singer on Kendrick Lamar’s masterpiece single, “These Walls,” my personal favorite from To Pimp a Butterfly. On that song, Wise delivers her vocals with so much calmness, but so much genuine emotion, that it hooked me immediately. On The Feminine: Act II, she continues with her calm demeanor, and delivers a pretty damn great album.

Anna Wise sings each song with so much relaxation that it started feeling like a long lullaby. Her voice is so heavenly in its sound, and she just breathes each note out with pure confidence. On the opening track “Coconuts” she consistently hums different vocal melodies over the music and it works. Normally I would cringe at musical choices like that because it often comes off as pretentious artistic garbage that, as Conan O’Brien put it in his literary critique of Dr. Seuss, “We call it cheating.” But Anna Wise goes against those artists who think they make bold choices by just letting her voice go free throughout the album. It feels as if she was just listening to the music breaks in the studio, and didn’t realize she’d hit the record button, and recorded herself humming to the melodies.

All in all, it just feels natural. Anna Wise has an amazing voice, and I hope to see her perform live soon.

The music production is overall good, but at times a little boring. R&B pop often has an issue where it gets stuck between soft and intense, and is never sure where to go. Wise has some gorgeous musical movements, especially on “Stacking that Paper,” “Boss Bitch,” and “Someone,” and other times, the music just becomes a little monotonous. It feels like she’s holding back from letting the music do its part in delivering an emotional punch, and on her next album, I’m hoping to get it. Maybe I just like intense music too much, but an album void of music that doesn’t always match the emotional power of Wise’s voice, ends up feeling incomplete.

The Feminine: Act II is a great second release from Anna Wise that I hope will establish her more in the music world, and for her next release, I can’t wait to get more intense musical explosions.