It is without a doubt that the singer is a gigantic part of the utter brilliance of Rhye’s debut, Woman. The fact that the soul behind the band’s sultry and gorgeously feminine vocals is a young man by the name of Michael Milosh isn’t merely special as a gossipy tidbit. Milosh’s vocals don’t straddle the dichotomy of “male” and “female” identities. When he sings, he is all of 100% woman – and what a sexy one! He channels the sexiness of Marvin Gaye and Sade in one heck of a steamy package. Once you hear his phenomenal vocals, you are already immersed in the act of sweet lovemaking to care if a man or a woman sings them. Yes, Milosh will make you want to make whoopee in an instant.
Speaking of making whoopee, the music plays no small part in making you want to get it on either. But it is as beautiful and intricate as it is seductive. Rhye’s brew of jazz and R&B infused sophisti-pop has been tried before, with plenty of really good music coming out of this combination. However, nothing has been as gorgeous and extravagant as this. Both members of this duo, Michael Milosh and Robin Hannibal, come from electronic music backgrounds. And Woman has a downtempo electronic music undercurrent to it as well. But the massive presence of a vast array of orchestral instruments – clarinet, flute, horn arrangement, saxophone, flugelhorn, trumpet, harp, viola, violin, string arrangement, and trombone – that is so integral to this album’s sound is quite impressive, making it wonderfully capricious but without a hint of conceit.
One of the common – and not so laudable – themes in the meticulously arranged songs on Woman, however, is that the band seems to run out of ideas once a song reaches the second chorus. Moreover, some of the songs (most notably “3 Days,” “Last Dance,” and “Verse”) end sort of abruptly after a rather short and awkward bridge once the second chorus is over, leaving a feeling that there could have been more to them. One way of looking at this is that while the album is so perfect and amazing, it still leaves something to be desired, which leaves some hope for the follow-up. Otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot this duo can do to top this magnificent debut effort.
