Snoh Aalegra "Ugh, Those Feels Again"

For LA-based singer Snoh Aalegra, feelings hit like tear gas, seeping into the skin and scrambling the senses. Whether in the throes of love or heartbreak, the romance she sings of is forever smoldering, a breath away from flaring into full-blown passion or asphyxiating into ash. Snoh has been workshopping this dramatic take on soul for half a decade, and on her second album, the process finally bears fruit.

Signed to No I.D.’s ARTium Recordings alongside Vince Staples and Jhené Aiko, Snoh is a bit of a polyglot, straddling R&B, soul, and rap. She has described her music as “cinematic soul,” and the label is florid but not inaccurate. -Ugh, those feels again is a sequel to her 2017 album, FEELS, and shares that record’s emphasis on mood. In the vein of her idols Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston, Snoh prefers lush, grandiose arrangements. That grandeur often served as a crutch on FEELS and the EPs that preceded it, puffing up vanilla writing and competent but anonymous singing, but on Ugh, indulgence becomes integral to the storytelling, swelling and subsiding in cadence with Snoh’s impassioned vocals.