In a year dense with records about disillusionment, few feel as tactile and tender as The Passionate Ones (XL Recordings). Marcus Brown, the Baltimore-born, London-and-New York-seasoned artist behind Nourished by Time, has made a sophomore album built on contradictions: punk in spirit, R&B in delivery, brutally political, heartbreakingly romantic; deeply digital and yet full of flesh and blood.
More patient and swollen with intent than 2023’s Erotic Probiotic 2, this album is what crawled out of that wreckage and peered around — still in the same tattered hoodie with a vintage Zippo in its pocket. as its heart beats louder than the accompanying synths. Indeed, Passionate is 12 servings of protest music disguised as love songs (or maybe the other way around?), as Brown aches for connection and rails against the soul-stifling grind of class warfare while trying not to lose himself in the noise.
The romantic and the revolutionary aren’t just side-by-side here — they’re the same story. Over a delightfully cheesy and aspirational synth melody straight off the Tootsie soundtrack, “9 2 5” finds him sketching a version of himself barely keeping it together by “working restaurants by day” and “writing love songs every night.” But Brown is thankfully still dreaming with his eyes open when he offers, “may you always have a fight, be it wrong or be it right / shed a raindrop when you cry, but beware of sedatives and passing time.” Elsewhere, he’s obsessed (“BABY BABY”), undressed (“Max Potential”), distracted (“Idiot in the Park”) or in despair (“When the War Is Over”), but always reaching for someone who might reach back (the alternative universe slow-dance prom anthem “Tossed Away” may make you want to cry into your boutonnière).
Musically, Passionate is wildly inventive with just the right floater of whimsy. Brown’s bedroom pop instincts are so intact that it can often feel like you’re hearing him record live while turning knobs with one hand and folding laundry with the other, yet the sonic palette is expansive and richly considered. Synths burble and shine, guitar lines sustain or spiral and beats jump-cut between eras. There are Madonna and Janet vibes, chopped-up vocal freakouts and dancefloor burners, but even the most playful moments come laced with dread or yearning.
Still, the most stunning thing about Passionate is how personal it feels while sketching out a landscape of capitalist burnout, spiritual hunger and romantic survival. Brown has opened a window into the emotional architecture of how love looks when you’re broke, working too much or trying to heal without anesthesia. In these trying times, who could ask for more?
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