Daniel Caesar’s fourth studio album, Son of Spergy, is a soulful and spiritual meditation on family and religion. Raised in a deeply religious Seventh Day Adventist environment himself, much of this album draws heavily on his own personal experience. Early in his career, Caesar used similar scriptural imagery and references to sin and God such as on Death & Taxes ‘surely my sins have found me out’. This new album, boasting features like Bon Iver and Yebba, and cowritten/produced by the likes of Mustafa, Solange and Blood Orange, returns to these roots with titles like Touching God and Sins of the Father.

The album opens with Rain Down, featuring Sampha, which sets the tone with choral harmonies and the strong invocation ‘lord let your blessings rain down’.  Sonically, Son of Spergy leans heavily into gospel influences with slow and impactful builds and rich layered harmonies. The organ is also used liberally throughout the project, evoking the feeling of being in a church service. Caesar’s father Norwill Simmons, a pastor and gospel singer, features on the album on Baby Blue, while his aunt appears on Rain Down, deepening the album’s focus on and connection to family. As the record goes on, Caesar then contemplates having a family of his own and the kind of man he has become wondering if he is ‘man or a beast’.

Lyrically, however, Son of Spergy loses some of the poetic feeling of Caesar’s previous albums. In his older tracks such as Always and Best Part, for example, he presents rich landscapes ‘baby used to walk with me, down Bloor Street’ ‘you’re my water when I’m stuck in the desert’.  This album feels less relatable and tangible, trading rich metaphor for simpler descriptions and overt language mentioning sin and God. ‘My homie crashed the Tesla and that sh** went up in flames, the lord he got him out in time I wanna tell him thanks’, or ‘you gave your life so I wouldn’t have to, where there is one there is two’.  In perhaps his most deeply personal album, Caesar loses some of the gut-wrenching emotion of his previous work through simple writing. While this approach may help drive home the raw and bare truth of the music, it is certainly a shift from the emotional complexity and texture of earlier work.

Moon is a standout track on Son of Spergy, featuring Bon Iver, that epitomises the religious themes of the album. The song begins with a gentle acoustic arrangement but really shines in the last minute of the track, a hymnal revelation with organ and layered vocals. In this last verse, Caesar cries ‘why are you a weapon formed against me? Is this what you call love’ expressing his anguish and vulnerability. The juxtaposition between the soft acoustic instrumental and the emotive language at this point creates powerful tension, embodying the album’s themes of faith, doubt and redemption.

Overall, the album still scores points for its endlessly rich instrumental parts, and the religious imagery Caesar evokes through the use of the organ and by featuring real voices of his family members. However, the decline in his lyricism cannot be ignored. The use of simple language in such a spiritual album without clear artistic intentions creates a muddled impression on the listener and draws attention away from the clear devotional and sacred undertones behind the project.

Rating: 5/10