Bakar: Halo review – outsider magpie inches towards the big time | Indie

For a while now, Bakar has seemed on the cusp, ready to stellify. His 2018 mixtape, Badkid, radiated scrappy, politicised energy fused to anything-goes ambition, an electrifying combination. The north London singer attracts a rabidly devoted young following who adore his vivid tales of rocky relationships, powdery stimulants and outsider life. He certainly has the songwriting chops and charm to be a star, as last year’s debut album, Nobody’s Home, hinted. Yet he only scored a first chart hit in March with 2019 single Hell N Back, an atypically softboi love song remixed here as a sweet duet with Summer Walker.

His acoustic punk-pop and street-corner soul are smoothed out sensibly on Halo, with grownup harmonising and choral interpolations on Selling Biscuits and Hate the Sun. As always, Bakar deals melodies that spill sunshine – Alive! is a perky follow-up to last year’s superb The Mission. And his singing is better than ever, whether reminiscent of Billie Eilish’s lean-in intimacies (Facts_Situations) or Kele Okereke’s husky confessionals (I’m Done). Yet mostly Halo feels like an inch rather than a leap forward. He may need more of the ravening attack of his full-band live show. Next time, perhaps.