Soul singer Case released his sixth studio album Heaven’s Door on March 31st, 2015. His last studio album Here, My Love was in 2010. A lot of collaborators on this album. Numerous songwriters/producers listed as well as the singer himself.
“Timeless” is the first song on the album. It’s a hip hop inspired instrumentation giving a Fugees “Killing Me Softly” vibe with a nice piano melody. The lyrics are talking about how their love is timeless. “Heavy Breathing” has very fine production, with a smooth bass line to it, and from the title of the song you can already guess what the song is about—Asthma. (Of course sex.) “Shook Up” has a great acousic melody, the lyrics are saying the love she gives has him shook up. “Difficult” is another great acoustic driven melody. Heartfelt lyrics expressing how they make love so difficult.
The stand-out tracks from the album are; “Meet In The Middle”, “You Just Don’t Know, and “I Won’t Cry No More”.
“I Won’t Cry No More” is a soft ballad, very mellow lyrically and musically. It’s one of his best songs recorded.
Case is giving the standard R&B arrangements, you can tell he was trying to keep the production relevant with the times. By the time you get halfway through the album, it seemed the vision of the production lost its way. Some of the drum programming on the production didn’t match the melody of some of the songs at times. Overall, it just felt like this whole album was just a random selection of songs to put on an album to make the deadline. It’s kind of bordering on the line of mediocrity, but majority of this album has some replay value to it. This album deserves a B-for effort.
Heaven’s Door is available in stores now; also for (digital) purchase via iTunes and Amazon Music.