Next up is Nortey with some old-fashioned R&B…
Nortey Dowuona: The patient crafting of Justine’s lyrics feels intentional at each juncture: but I can’t no more, as much as it kills me to let you go. Once you fall for somebody, the care and adoration you first receive is what you try to recreate as time goes on, but unfortunately, they refuse to reciprocate as you languish in despair, until you accept they no longer care for you, thus you can’t care for them in return. I invested time in you, kept receipts, and you can’t even take it back, feels like a trap. Every day you try to reestablish that connection. You go back to what made you feel the way you did: the thoughtful gesture of a gift that hooks on your heartstrings, the careful and tender conversations that gave you a glimpse into who they are, the quiet moments where they would caress or cuddle with you, lighting up your skin with each touch, all now dissolving and burning up as you recall them. The chorus is the crowning jewel, especially the title line: you used to give me butterflies: all I’ve tried to put to words, summed up in one line. That delicious little synth riff Willondabeat places in the outro as Justine riffs is also delightful.
[10]
Alfred Soto: She’s got a yearning timbre, and the lyric “there’s nothing inside” came outta nowhere, but this ain’t much, especially after I played her after Ari Lennox and Victoria Monét.
[5]
Leah Isobel: There’s a groundedness here that I like, sourced from Justine’s patient, weary calm countering the melody’s loose and wavelike patterns. She stages the conflict between immediate defiance and long-term understanding, between anger and sadness and hope. The aqueous instrumental drifts along, unbothered.
[7]
Frank Kogan: I’m a moth.
[3]
Iain Mew: “Butterflies” is staged in a stately, cautious way. It seems an odd choice at first given the passionate subject matter, but when the line “you used to give me butterflies” arrives it’s both a freeing rush of feeling and something obviously in a past that she hasn’t been able to let go of. Everything newer is still too immediate to be fully felt.
[7]
Katherine St. Asaph: Nice metallic processing on the vocals, but otherwise meandering and unremarkable.
[5]
Dave Moore: Bread and butter R&B, but when you’ve gone a long time without bread and butter, you might forget how satisfying it is.
[6]