On his second album, God said no Omar Apollo wields his heart like a butterfly knife. On “Done With You,” an airy brass-assisted pop song, she covers moments of devastating vulnerability with a protective layer of detached composure. In the shrugging chorus, he insists that he's done with his lover – a harshness that stands in stark contrast to his earlier, velvety pleas to let him go. The video matches this energy, depicting the star as he alternates between waving blades at the viewer and painfully running them along his jaw. It's a fitting visual representation of a record where Apollo hones some of his darkest moments into sparkling pop gems.
God said no comes from three months Apollo spent in London in 2023. Following the release of his debut full-length Ivory In 2022, tours with SZA and Billie Eilish, and a nomination for Best New Artist at the 2023 Grammys, the Mexican-American singer-songwriter led the way professionally, but privately nursed a broken heart as he surveyed the wreckage of a relationship. Working with noted collaborators Teo Halm (here as executive producer), Carter Lang and Blake Slatkin, Apollo first sketched out the 14 songs at the famous Abbey Road Studios, later completing the album in the US with his biggest hit to date being Gut . -Whistling “Evergreen (I Didn't Deserve You At All),” Apollo already has something of a reputation as a heartthrob — as he recently said Complex, “My fitness is always craving.” But on this record, he paints that feeling with every shade of his palette. God said no extends far beyond the improbable ballad. Apollo weaves his sadness, anger and self-doubt through a collection of nuanced anthems and pop tracks.
On “Less of You” and “Drifting,” Apollo recalls Robyn's tearful anthemic style, the former combining Giorgio Moroder-esque vocal melodies with a eulogy for a slowly fading relationship, and the latter sprinkling his romantic disillusionment Apollo. Balearic type stroke. These nuances of understated Europop are a new element of Apollo's sound, pondering where he once might have lived. But his voice remains the star of the show, particularly when he trades great melodies with Sudanese Canadian singer-songwriter Mustafa on the plaintive “Plane Trees.”
While often luxurious to listen to, Apollo's ballads represent the album's least exciting moments. “Empty” and “Dispose of Me” meander sleepily, doing little to distinguish this record from his previous bedroom R&B releases. A meditative vocal note about sadness by Pedro Pascal also wears on repeated listens. The album is most compelling when Apollo knowingly leans towards the more straightforward aspects of sadness. Take the catchy single, “Spite,” where, with a hook that pulses with delicious fury, Apollo walks a fine line between loving and hating the partner who keeps him hanging. Over dark guitar licks, it brings to life the confused loneliness of a situation through bittersweet vignettes of dying flowers, unread text messages and long solo flights. Elsewhere, he screams a bitter and desperate hook on the sprawling 'How', his anger as coldly insistent as the drum machine backing it.
These wild moments hint at more complex and ambitious possibilities for Apollo as a storyteller and as a pop star. In “Life's Unfair,” a tragic funk-pop song, Apollo coolly admits he did “something really bad” to someone he once wanted to marry. The trap standout “Against Me” takes on a kind of hyper-masculine, corporeal response to rejection. In these songs, Apollo may be full of longing, but he's also flawed, fired up, and the self-proclaimed “baddest bitch.” God said no stands out from Apollo's previous releases not only because of its genre experimentation and catchier choruses, but also because of its willingness to get ugly. Here, Apollo has been beaten, but he doesn't play the victim. Instead, he pulls out his teeth.
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