The good news for fans of Seal in the 90s is that Seal is back, and taking particular inspiration from Seal in the 90s. This ninth album is full of the kind of crisp pop-soul you could imagine a luxury hi-fi manufacturer reserving for test demonstrations: “I’m sure you’ll find, sir, that the guitar tracking sounds especially clean on this one.” Those 90s reference points are not restricted to Seal’s own signature sound: Let Yourself is reminiscent of Jon Secada’s Just Another Day, while Every Time I’m With You has the same hokey Beatles chord sequence that you last heard on Oasis’s All Around the World. It’s not that the songs themselves are all bad – Life on the Dancefloor miraculously bridges the gulf between pop-house and Radiohead – rather that it’s hard to see what purpose they serve in 2015.
