Beard

Her third solo album is a revelatory distillation of her sound, nearly two decades in. Syd Bennett was a teenager when she and a group of friends (better known as Odd Future) met up in her childhood bedroom to make some of the most era-defining music of a generation. Those early experiences as the collective’s only female member prepared the singer/rapper/producer/engineer for her next acts—frontperson of The Internet, and eventually her own solo career, which kicked off with 2017’s Fin. That album proved that Syd was a formidable solo talent, while its follow-up, 2022’s Broken Hearts Club, was her way of working through a bad breakup. But she’s described Beard, her third solo record, as the first one on which she truly feels like herself—a revelatory distillation of her sound after nearly two decades in the game. Where its predecessor wallowed in romantic melancholy, Beard shows the musician at her most open-hearted—swooning, seducing, falling and ultimately healing. It’s also an unprecedented showcase for Syd’s production chops: Ten of the record’s 12 tracks feature her name among the production credits. It’s a space she shares with some of contemporary R&B’s brightest luminaries, from Rodney Jerkins (“Bad Guys”, “GMFU”) to James Fauntleroy (“Any Time”) to Raphael Saadiq, now something of a mentor figure, at whose North Hollywood studio she made a portion of the album. Still, Beard’s most compelling soundscapes are solo Syd productions, from the bossa nova rhythms of “My Love” to the sultry and subtly trippy “Do Better”.