It’s a raw and brave performance, one that we don’t expect from our modern multiplatinum divas, much less a Grammy-winning superstar of Keys’s caliber. More than that, though, “Love Is My Disease’’ marks a surprising shift in Keys’s straight-down-the-middle R&B. Warts and all, she’s visceral and compelling on this new album, to the point of making you uncomfortably close to her heartache.
She doesn’t go into specifics, but she is obviously working through a particularly painful time of transition on this album. For Keys, the notion of freedom comes from addressing her problems with love while also taking blame for some of them.
There’s something austere but sturdy about several of these new songs, as though their hard shells are concealing a tender soft spot Keys isn’t ready to expose just yet. Channeling some of the space and intensity of Kanye West’s “808s & Heartbreak’’ (especially the thunderous drum loops), it’s not at all self-indulgent. There’s a sprinkling of sass from Beyoncé’s “I Am. . . Sasha Fierce,’’ but never enough to supplant Keys’s own stamp on the music.
So much of “The Element of Freedom’’ sounds big and airy, hulking but with a heartbeat. We’ve heard this template a lot in the past few years, courtesy of OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, who has penned epic ballads for Beyoncé (“Halo’’), Kelly Clarkson (“Already Gone’’), Jordin Sparks (“Battlefield’’), and Leona Lewis (“Bleeding Love’’).
Keys, who cowrote all but one of the 14 songs, didn’t work with Tedder, but his influence is felt all over this record. After a spoken-word intro, a pointless preface Keys often employs to set the mood, the album slides into its sleekest moment, “Love Is Blind,’’ which strikes the unlikely balance between sensual and depraved. Picking up the pace over ’80s synth lines and a metallic drum sound, “This Bed’’ bounces to the beat of a long-lost Whitney Houston hit.
