*A review of SZA's* Ctrl
The title says everything. Ctrl. Control. And yet this is not an album about control. It is an album about losing it — and in doing so, paradoxically, SZA takes complete possession of her own life.
On 9th June 2017, after years of delays, SZA's debut studio album finally arrived. Originally slated for release in 2015, the record was stalled by what she described as a "blinding paralysis" of anxiety, and was ultimately completed only after her label physically retrieved the hard drive. The fraught journey to release was itself a rehearsal of the album's central themes: emotions that resist containment, relationships that slip through one's fingers no matter how tightly one grasps, and one woman's determination not to lose herself amid the chaos.
SZA conceals nothing. She admits to sleeping with her ex-boyfriend's friend ("Supermodel"), to knowingly continuing as a married man's mistress ("The Weekend"), to wanting a man who already belonged to someone else ("Love Galore"). These confessions never tip into self-destruction because SZA never once reaches for the language of victimhood. She looks her own desires and choices squarely in the eye, articulating them with a sharpness that is occasionally laced with dark humour. On "Love Galore", featuring Travis Scott, the line "my man is my man is your man / heard it's her man too" maps an entire emotional landscape in a single breath. "Doves in the Wind", on which Kendrick Lamar appears, is the album's most direct and unsparing assault on men who treat sex as a weapon.
"Drew Barrymore" is the album's heart. Anxieties about appearance, the fear of not being attractive enough, the stubborn persistence of the desire to be loved regardless — SZA lays all of this bare over an acoustic guitar, with a candour that never once shades into self-pity. Beginning in self-deprecation and ending in self-proclamation, it is an anthem for the self-aware. The closing track, "20 Something", pulls back to a wider vantage point: a confession about being on the cusp of adulthood, wanting everything and understanding almost nothing. It resonates across generations.
The production is equally distinguished. Beats crafted by Craig Balmoris, Frank Dukes, Carter Lang, Scum, and ThankGod4Cody move fluidly between alternative R&B, trap, indie rock, dream pop, and neo-soul. The textures conjure Sade, Lauryn Hill, and Björk at once, yet belong wholly to none of them. Above all, the production is built around SZA's voice — raw yet tender, low yet penetrating. The friction that arises when that voice locks into the instrumentation is *Ctrl*'s greatest pleasure.
There are minor reservations. The album's tension eases somewhat in its second half, and across fourteen tracks the density of the opening cannot be fully sustained. The first five songs represent the record at its most concentrated and most essential.
But *Ctrl* possesses everything a debut album could hope to offer: a singular voice, a singular perspective, and a singular courage. In telling the story of losing control, SZA demonstrates complete musical command. The magic wand, it turns out, was in her hands all along.
★★★★⯨☆ (4.5/5.0)
In a word: An album delayed by anxiety that became a generation's confession. SZA told a story about losing control, and in doing so produced the most perfectly controlled work of her career.