Description

1LP Vinyl – 194398906713

Gold-Diggers Sound, the title of Leon Bridges' new album, is also a tribute to the place it was recorded, a newly swanky hotel/bar/studio in East Hollywood called Gold-Diggers. It’s good branding for Bridges, who has always presented himself and his music as timeless, which is to say, of a better time, somewhere back in the sepia-toned 20th century. The sense of place suggested by a studio on Santa Monica Boulevard would seem to harken back to that time, and it sets the tone for Bridges’ Hollywood record, which is what this album seeks to be.

Gold-Diggers Sound is far from maximalist. In the tradition of Bridges’ work, it’s a smooth, risk-averse R&B record, pleasant to the ear and lacking in any songs that would shake up one’s impression of the Texan soul singer. But it’s an album made with extraordinary care, and while it sometimes flirts with tedium, Bridges’ voice and producers Ricky Reed and Nate Mercereau’s subtle instrumental choices keep many of its songs out of the valley of the bland.