One mannequin for “God Mentioned No” might be Frank Ocean’s 2016 “Blonde,” one other heartbreak album awash in vulnerability; Apollo’s reedy tenor usually resembles Ocean’s voice. On “God Mentioned No,” the guitars and keyboards are tamped down and reticent; drumbeats are current however not pushy. Even when the manufacturing deploys strings, horns or Apollo’s personal backup vocal harmonies, they’re subdued and distant, extra like apparitions than reinforcements.
The partial exception is “Much less of You,” a metronomic synth-pop monitor that harks again to Giorgio Moroder (together with some Daft Punk-style filtered and harmonized vocals), with Apollo questioning, “Was final night time the top of me and also you?” Even with a blippy hook and a refrain that shifts into a significant key, Apollo sounds more and more alone and forlorn.
There’s a free narrative arc to the album. The songs hint a rising friction that results in an estrangement, to testing new companions and, lastly, to what is perhaps both a reconciliation or a fond farewell. Within the album’s opener, “Be Cautious With Me,” Apollo sings, “I attempted to be somebody you appreciated/However it’s simply an excessive amount of compromise,” over acoustic guitar selecting that hints at Elliott Smith. A number of songs later, he insists — in a refrain that repeats the phrase 16 occasions — that he’s “Performed With You.”
Clearly, he’s not. “I can’t let go, I ought to let go,” he vacillates in “Drifting.” In “Life’s Unfair,” he admits to having a fling whereas separated, however insists, “Once I was kissing him, I used to be seeing you” and provides, “I’d’ve married you.”
Though Apollo has nodded to Mexican music on previous albums and EPs, he has Spanish lyrics in only one music on “God Mentioned No”: “Empty,” an otherworldly waltz positioned halfway by way of the album. Its refrain plainly states, “You left me empty/Hollowed and empty.” The second verse switches to Spanish, as Apollo confesses that he can’t cease fascinated by his ex, and provides, in Spanish, that he’s “singing in one other language so that you don’t perceive me/I don’t need you to know the way a lot it hurts.” He’s bereft, however making an attempt to remain guarded.
