Charmingly off-kilter R&B delivered with smirks and quirks

Charmingly off-kilter R&B delivered with smirks and quirks.

Part R&B lover boy, part alt-rock slacker, Malcolm Todd is blessed with a naturally smooth melodic voice, but he likes to situate it in messy contexts. His third full-length Do That Again belongs to a tradition of off-kilter, rough-sketch R&B that spans Steve Lacy to SWAG, delivering its seductive entendres—like the irrepressibly horny one-two combo of “Jean Skirt” and “Obsessica”—with quirks and smirks to spare.

And even at his most miserable—see: the sad-boy synth-funk reverie “Lonely Song”—Todd has a knack for framing his misery in amusingly relatable terms: “Mattress on the floor/Minimal decor/My doorbell only rings when my food is at the door.” But on the chiming indie-pop charmer “I Saw Your Face”, Todd taps a deeper romantic vein while dislodging his tongue from cheek.