Victoria Monét spent three years earning the right to make whatever album she wanted. Jaguar II turned one of R&B’s most trusted pens into a three-time Grammy winner, and “On My Mama” made her a star on her own terms. Frequency of Love is what she did with that freedom: 22 tracks, just over an hour, and a guest list that reads like a festival poster. It’s also the first time her music has sounded unsure of where it’s going.
The ambition is obvious. Monét told The Associated Press she’s “really, really, really passionate about love,” and the album tries to cover all of it: dating, heartbreak, motherhood, the state of the world. That’s a lot of ground, and the record keeps switching lanes to cover it. Opener “All I Need” nods to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, “Come Back To You” rides an Isley Brothers sample, and “Head To Toe” and “Almost” flip Joe and Brandy. Then comes the yacht R&B glide of “Juicy,” and later the house pulse of “Reach Out” and “Lose Myself.” Every idea works on paper. Stacked together, they play like six EPs fighting for the same hour.
The interludes don’t help. There are five of them, plus an intro, and instead of stitching the moods together they keep cutting the momentum. Before release, Monét asked fans not to skip around because the sequencing gives each song its context. The problem is that the sequencing is the weakest thing here. “Let Me,” a No. 1 at Adult R&B radio and one of the best songs she’s ever released, doesn’t show up until track 20.
That’s frustrating, because the highs are real. “You Hurt Me Too” is a strong standout and the darkest song on the album, where a lone piano gives way to distorted 808s, strings and harp while Monét sings through betrayal with a bite she rarely shows. It leads straight into “See You in My Dreams,” which pairs Monét with SZA on a hazy duet about a love she slept on, with SZA playing the one too guarded to let her back in. It’s the emotional peak of the album. Bruno Mars arrives one track later on “That’s Why I Love You,” a devotional slow burner built on a 1963 Bruno Lauzi ballad, and the two harmonize like they’ve been doing it for years. Bryson Tiller keeps the run going on “Single,” Chlöe brings real heat to “Lose Myself,” and Lucky Daye slides into “Maybe” like no time has passed since “Smoke.” The sweetest moment belongs to “You Mean the World to Me,” where Leon Thomas and Monét’s daughter Hazel turn a love song into a family portrait.
Look at where most of those songs sit, though. The strongest stretch runs from track 12 to track 20, which means the album takes half its runtime to find its footing. By then, a lot of listeners will have already built their own playlist out of it.
Nothing here suggests Monét has lost her touch as a writer or vocalist. There’s a lean, 12-track version of Frequency of Love that would sit comfortably next to Jaguar II. This version buries it under too many detours, and the signal never quite comes through clean.
