Usher was at an elevated if odd juncture when he released
Coming Home. Delivered between the end of his twice-extended Las Vegas residency and Super Bowl LVIII halftime performance, the album also preceded a tour he named Past Present Future to signal that he wouldn't be content to do just the hits. The singer was striving to remain relevant while recognizing his status as a legacy act. He had surprised with
"A" (a
Zaytoven collaboration recorded while he was working on this album), teased the possibility of a sequel to the diamond platinum
Confessions, given a nostalgic NPR Tiny Desk Concert (with nothing post-
Confessions in the set list), and maintained visibility with occasional singles and featured appearances, often teamed with younger artists. His first true studio album in eight years attempts a similar balance. It does represent a sort of homecoming -- he's reunited with executive producer
L.A. Reid after a two-decade split -- while warding off any perception that it's Confessions 2 under another title. Like all of
Usher's earlier post-millennial LPs,
Coming Home is long and pieced together. None of the collaborators, a mix of longtime partners and new associates, is on more than a handful of the 20 tracks. It starts at what sounds like a closing chapter of a love story: hard-fought resolution of romantic perseverance through slick dance-pop. In the following consecutive songs,
Usher amicably breaks up with
Summer Walker, serenades
Latto (helped a second time by
Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl"), laments falling in love, gets lascivious (with "leave you for dead" a strange declaration of conquest), and longs for an ex. His and
H.E.R.'s lovely piano duet "Risk It All" is then lifted from the soundtrack for
The Color Purple. After a few more adequate songs without sonic or lyrical linearity -- a tender collaboration with simpatico Afrobeats producer/singer
Pheelz stands out most -- the album hits its stride with a sequence of slow jams demonstrating that
Usher is at the top of his game as a singer, still much more than a mere entertainer. A couple tracks pair him with early partners
Jermaine Dupri and
Bryan-Michael Cox, and while those are fine, they're eclipsed by the Minneapolitan pop-funk of "I Love U" (
the-Dream,
Tricky Stewart, and
D'Mile) and smudged electro of "Luckiest Man" (
Brandon "B.A.M." Hodge).
Usher is in his element, at his most charming, throughout that stretch of the album. The finishing touch is the "Usher remix" of
Jung Kook's rubbery disco-funk hit "Standing Next to You," thereby making another intercontinental connection -- and sounding only a little more randomly placed than anything else on offer. ~ Andy Kellman
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