In a post-Halsey, post-Tove Lo world, Britney obviously has upped her game. This album is still rather empty fun, and it still sounds quite engineered, but less so than her past releases. “Just Like Me,” with its acoustic-guitar backing sounds surprisingly sharp, while “Love Me Down” manages to go above and beyond to balance Spears Gwen Stefani-esque half-spoken verses with some effective breakdown moments during the chorus. It is the moments that work that ultimately take the focus into the positive side of the scale. Still all these misses are much better than the weakest part of “Blackout,” “Circus” or “Britney Jean.” “Clumsy” feels like it is a groove and a hook without a complete song and the authoritative attempt on Spears’ part to belt on “What You Need” sort of falls flat. On the stripper anthem, “Private Show,” she does a truly awkward Rihanna impression during the “Work it, work it / Slide down my pole / Watch me spin it and twerk it” chorus. While this album is noticeably better than what Britney has given us in the past, it still has a few moments that keep it from being great. On “Do You Wanna Come Over?” for instance, she delivers a very sleek slice of electro-infused club-ready music. Perhaps this is evidence that she has been working on the quality of her vocal performance. You can still hear bits of Auto-Tune hidden in the mix, adding polish to Spears’ vocals but this is less pronounced than before. This is a much-needed improvement on what was presented on her last effort “Britney Jean.”
From the opening moments of opener “Invitation,” it is clear that there is a new, refined sense of purpose. For the most part, this is a pretty even collection of modern electro-pop without the speed-bumps or embarrassing moments that usually keep her sets from being satisfying listens. Text: The biggest surprise of “Glory” is that it is one of Britney Spears’ most cohesive albums to date, if not her most.
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