“The visual is directed by Walid Azami, whose creativity you witnessed during the season of WE tv’s ‘Tamar & Vince’.”
[Video][Website]
[5.86]
Anthony Easton: This is Toni Braxton’s sister, who was part of some reality television debacle on WE tv. You can think of this as sort of like the difference between La Toya and Janet, except Janet was A-list, and Toni never was. You can smell the desperation all over this. Weirdly, it lacks the camp genre collapse of the better reality TV music singles.
[3]
Rebecca A. Gowns: A good ballad; a little bit like it came off Beyonce’s floor and a little bit more like classic Braxton sister voice stylings c. late 1990s meets 2010s production. Great voice — the kind that’s not instantly recognizable and trademarked but is still capable of that unique quality: infusing a compressed R&B track with warmth. I love the little synthy bits in the verses, and hey,there are little fingersnaps in the beat. It’s a corny extended metaphor about love and war — really extended. What more could you ask for?
[7]
Edward Okulicz: A big syrupy metaphor about love and war extended to breaking point lives or dies on whether it’s given a vocal performance that’s big enough to make me feel like the love story is a big life-changing ordeal. Braxton delivers, and the song is lush and sweeping enough to make her investment in the subject matter work. The tumbling drums that lead into the chorus are but one of the many subtle, clever production touches, and “Love and War” ends up being a lot smarter than your average woman-belting-and-emote-a-thon.
[8]
Scott Mildenhall: This is the kind of balladry that seems to succeed more in the US than the UK: impressive, but not particularly exciting. Sometimes the answer to that Atlantic taste divide – the Mariah Effect – is to offer Britain a completely different single, but in this case Tamar might be wise to follow her eldest sister’s lead, and rope in some rent-a-remixer or other to put a banging donk on the one she’s got.
[5]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: The “hey DJ!” yell at the start of the song is a tag for producer DJ Camper but it doubles as a great gag, almost to hoodwink you when you realise you’re listening to an old-fashioned sway-ballad without any of that pesky hip-hop. Thankfully, it’s a properly sultry sway-ballad with all the tasteful grandeur and over-the-top lyrics expected and present: “we’ll be here after the bomb drops,” Braxton saaaangs, lucky to release this so closely to Dawn Richard’s battle/fantasy-themed love songs. One more battle metaphor and we’ve got a trend, people!
[7]
Brad Shoup: Those Sandé strings and drums falling down the stairs are two mean fake-outs. Thank goodness for that swaying chorus. I can hear power ballad stings in the background; it’s amazing, the canniness of Braxton’s move toward vow-renewal market share.
[7]
Jer Fairall: She do the Mariah in different voices.
[4]