That's the thing about Frank Ocean - his sexuality is noteworthy, but it's his music that's truly remarkable. Throughout, Ocean and his producers offer an inventive but relatively understated take on contemporary R&B - no mean feat for an album whose centrepiece is a 10-minute shape-shifter called 'Pyramids'. 'Bad Religion' uses strings and mournful organs as musical grammar for romantic anguish. 'Pilot Jones' is a suitably woozy tune about literal stoned love. channel ORANGE is American R&B singer and songwriter Frank Ocean’s debut studio album. 'Sierra Leone' sounds like the lazy sex that sinks its protagonist. What makes Channel Orange a great debut is Ocean's ability to match narrative with soundtrack. As he wrote this album, did Ocean know that soon he'd come out as bisexual? Lines like 'you're so buff and strong' and 'you run my mind boy' feel brave either way. Ocean can also be tender - drug dealers have feelings too, says 'Lost' - and at times, devastatingly personal. See how he skewers the lifestyles of 'Super Rich Kids' with a single line: 'Too many bottles of wine we can't pronounce'. In a year where R&B traditionalists like Usher and R.Kelly have gotten praise for new albums, Ill take Oceans hipster brand of nu-R&B instead. Frank’s lens is crystalline and otherworldly, like the diamonds of Sierra Leone one of the many locales he brings us to throughout the record offering a view of heartbreak so honest that it. But he's clearly a natural storyteller and a keen observer anyway.

Ocean's stint with the Odd Future collective, home to several controversial but verbally dextrous rappers, will have sharpened his pencil.

Frank ocean album channel orange review