Shawn Mendes. Album: Wonder. Songs: “Intro”, “Wonder”, “Higher”, “24 Hours”, “Teach Me How To Love”, “Call My Friends”, “Dream”, “Song For No One”, “Monster”, “305”, “Always Been You”, “Piece Of You”, “Look Up At The Stars”, “Can’t Imagine”. Edition: Universal Music. Our opinion: good.
After the enormous international success achieved with Shawn…, her third album released in 2018, and particularly with the theme “Señorita”, Shawn Mendes it is news again from the hand of Wonder, a fourth album in which he reveals well-known and welcome signs of maturity both personally and professionally. At just 22 years of age, the young Canadian artist seems to have had many experiences very suddenly, especially from the success that has accompanied him almost from the beginning of his career. And it is precisely around those experiences and questions asked aloud that the fourteen songs that make up this brand new production revolve.
Topics such as the usual questions, fears and insecurities that begin to arise with the entry of adulthood, reflections on how to deal with fame and popular recognition when discovering that they also carry certain responsibilities and obligations that cannot be avoided and varied declarations of love dedicated to his partner, Camila Cabello, go through Wonder with traditional pop instrumentation, some acoustic highlights (“Song For No One”), and a predominance of heartfelt ballads and midbeats that climax through epic and pompous choruses, as denoted by “Wonder”, “24 hours “,” Dream “and” Always Been You “.
Although the general atmosphere of the album tends towards the reflective, the contemplative and a certain introspection, spaces where his voice reaches its greatest brilliance, lucidity and fullness, Mendes still preserves, and develops without keeping anything, the passion and frenzy of his youthful years opening the game towards more rhythmic and danceable passages. This is where “Higher”, the soulful breath of “Monster” (in duet with Justin Bieber), “305” (with a minimalist and playful Ed Sheeran flavor) and perhaps two of the best songs on the album are inscribed: ” Piece Of You “(with certain vocal reminiscences of The Weeknd) and the irresistible and contagious funk pulse of the successful” Teach Me How To Love “.
Anyway, at least on this album, Shawn Mendes’ musical interests do not seem to point purely and exclusively towards the dance floor as is often the case with many of his contemporaries. And in that sense, “Can’t Imagine” sets the tone for where you want to direct your music from here on. In this deep theme a solitary guitar accompanies his crystalline vocalization, giving an intimate and emotional closure to a Wonder designed by a young and consecrated singer turned into an auspicious and promising singer-songwriter with classical edges.
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