It's hard to believe that the ever pensive and introspected musical styling of Sufjan Stevens would some how be involved in launching the public facing career of a full blown R&B debut, but such is the case when it comes to Los Angeles/Columbia, MD transplant Gallant. Christopher Gallant, better known solely by his surname, supported Detroit’s favorite songwriting son on Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell tour in 2015, which featured the most Snapchat-able moment of Stevens’ career – a collaborative cover of Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” with Stevens and Gallant exchanging verses. The pairing of Gallant, a slick dancing, falsetto pitched R&B singer as Stevens’ opener felt oddly appropriate, mostly due to Gallant’s vivacious stage presence, prohibiting anyone in attendance to question his right to the opening slot.
Cross-genre pollination can work to an artist’s benefit or detriment, and in the case of Gallant, it's safe to assume that his time spent on the road with Stevens paid off in spades. Gallant’s long overdue debut record, Ology, recalls the most beloved R&B truisms while invigorating the overall landscape for a cornerstone genre that grown predominantly stagnant. The new school of R&B features futuristic samples warped through auto tune and Serato, something uniformly absent from the crisp organic sounds of Gallant’s sound. Furthermore, the lyricism in Ology is distinctly different from the coke-lined confessions of The Weeknd or trap music lyrical passiveness of Bryson Tiller; Gallant opts for the more vivid and warmer waters than his subdued contemporaries. In short, Ology is the R&B album no one knew they were missing.
Gallant has the honey-resin vocal tendencies that feel like melodic allusions to Usher and MJ, but his avant-garde leaning intricacies help him avoid any direct creative connections. Ology opens with single note echoes as they usher in a fever dream entry into the album’s first full length track, “Talking to Myself,” which wastes no time showcasing Gallant’s exceptional falsetto range amongst a shifting soundscape of R&B 808s, dubstep leaning drops, and coarse baritone saxophone; where Gallant’s melodies are wholly R&B, his instrumentals are other-worldly. “Shotgun” is an early album contender for best track of the record, as it stretches the genre confines of soul and R&B in a more modern mold. Gallant’s lyricism is a refreshing apologia from the cynicism of other contemporary R&B artists – “my God forsaken weakened pulse / I knew I have to admit this / I never was a force to be reckoned” – who would rather imbue stubborn self-righteousness. “Bourbon” is a pop R&B throwback with an injection of space age mysticism, harkening back to late '90s and early 2000s shimmery pop R&B tracks from the likes of Boyz II Men and Anthony Maxwell.
Gallant’s Ology presents an interesting movement within R&B, where he and fellow R&B disciples like Daniel Caesar further the genre bounds with gospel-esque runs mixed with heavy pop R&B production. Where Caesar straddles the line of Gallant and Bryson Tiller, Gallant operates in a realm of Usher-esque confidence that is propelled by his vocal chops. Songs like “Bone + Tissue” and “Weight in Gold” are Gallant’s vocal breakouts in the album’s first half, as if his capabilities (which are indeed more than capable) were so immense that he could no longer take holding such epic runs for later in the album.
As the record continues into its latter portion, the songs begin to explore other sonic realms, as “Episodes” flirts with surf rock, glam rock and '80s synthpop top-lined with effusive lyrical questioning of a relationship gone awry. Following “Episodes” comes “Miyazaki” – presumably named after the famed Studio Ghibli animator – a proverbial 180 from its predecessor, as a cool jazz rhythm allows Gallant to make short vocal runs before hopping into a The-Dream-esque vocal whisper. The lyrics of “Miyazaki” aren’t the most inspired – “If you want, I can make your body tremble” – but it somehow makes the song feel like an earnest mid-90s R&B panty-dropping ballad. “Miyazaki” fades into “Counting,” one of those obligatory R&B love lost nostalgia trips, but the track is revamped with light afro-beats over inspired lyrical vignettes – “I lost my pride in the crater / In ancient coal mines” – that suggest a truly thoughtful writer.
As Ology progresses, the vocal analogue for Gallant becomes more and more apparent – Gallant sounds startlingly similar to a young Seal that happens to have more vocal range and better taste is instrumentation. “Jupiter” kind of moves like a galaxical version of a Seal song, but Gallant deftly maintains his unique falsetto timbre as Moogs and shimmery percussion glimmer and glow. With Ology’s end in sight, we see the album’s first feature artist – new age hip-hop and R&B collaborator extraordinaire, Jhene Aiko - on “Skipping Stones.” It’s a nice R&B noir that sees light production, clean sounding drums and guitar, along with Motown adjacent horns that allow for Gallant to make some of his most impressive vocal arrangements. Aiko’s unique and affectation-less voice make for a nice addition on the duet portions of the track, but when she leads into her feature, the hip-hop singer as a lounge singer comes off as a bit of a stretch. Nevertheless, “Skipping Stones” is a true standout on the album, and a nice penultimate track. Ology closes with its most hopeful track, “Chandra,” where we hear Gallant opine, "Maybe there’s a home behind these eyes," which make for sweet sentiments within an emotionally confounding song that ranges from hope, to faith, to despondency, to attraction; all over a spacious orchestral arrangement.
Ology operates on a plane, which most debut records should aspire to achieve – it presents a cohesive sonic presence for Gallant, all the while allowing him to explore other musical pathways for future endeavors. Gallant is certainly not an avant-garde artist, but his willingness to consider other musical realms implies that his creative output could resemble something of a conceptually based artist. Gallant has entered an R&B arena that is already saturated by “new” and “groundbreaking” artists staking their claim to unforeseen R&B adaptations, but Gallant remains unfettered. His nouveau riche take on classic R&B is less of a gamble, and his diverse talent makes Gallant seems poised to experience a long standing career in and out of the genre.