18 months in the making and involving six producers [including Chris Loco, Sounwave and Mike Elizondo], Raleigh Ritchie’s debut album ‘You’re A Man Now, Boy’ is pretty neat for a side project. Much of the LP follows the narrative verse and swelling chorus format, but Ritchie makes it sound fresh with his engaging lyricism. His ability to be raw and confessional without losing his sense of humour is the real strength of the record. Touching on love, change and relationships, it’s a deeply personal body of work, and offers a real insight into who Ritchie is as an artist, underpinned by the fact that there’s only one feature on the album.
We’ve seen that Ritchie can do emotion and poignancy on the cinematic title track, ‘Stronger Than Ever’ and ‘Bloodsport ‘15’, but he’s got more strings to his bow than soulful R&B – he goes funky on ‘Keep It Simple‘, upbeat and celebratory on ‘The Greatest’, we get flashes of electronica on ‘Cowards‘ and ‘A Moor’, and he even experiments with falsetto and rap-style vocals ‘I Can Change’.
‘You’re A Man Now, Boy’ shows that Raleigh Ritchie knows who he is and isn’t afraid to share it – fears, flaws and all. Stream below via Spotify and click here to buy the album on iTunes.
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