Leon Bridges takes a classic-soul approach with Coming Home

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      Leon Bridges
      Coming Home (Columbia)

      Leon Bridges caught fire late last year with his slow-burning, old-school R & B single “Coming Home”, which now serves as the first track on the Texan’s debut LP of the same name. While seemingly an odd choice for an album title, it’s indicative of the classic-soul approach applied to the outstanding introductory effort.

      That title track hits all the right spots, bringing together guitar hooks as honeyed as Bridges’s yearning for the “tender sweet loving” of his one-and-only. The solo artist remains as thirsty on “Better Man”, where, above doo-wop backups and a heart-thumping bass line, he pledges to swim the Mississippi River to get in his girl’s good graces.

      Though exploring vintage textures, from the heavily reverberated production quality of the recording to its Sam Cooke–style twisters, like “Flowers”, Coming Home isn’t just treading retro-minded water.

      “River” closes out the collection like a sonic baptism. Bridges wipes the slate clean on the stripped-down song, which floats his fragile vocal above a bed of transcendent acoustic-guitar strums.

      “I go in as a man with many crimes,” he admits in the song. “There is blood on my hands and my lips aren’t clean.”

      He’s born again by the end of the track, and more than poised to pick up a number of converts with the brilliant and blessed sounds of Coming Home.

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