After
Royalty was released toward the end of 2015,
Chris Brown's market saturation strategy continued to play out and occasionally pay off. During the next two years, he was featured on roughly two-dozen tracks, including
DJ Khaled's "Do You Mind," and let loose a glut of headlining singles that led to his eighth solo full-length. Termed a double album,
Heartbreak on a Full Moon indeed fits on two CDs, but the track count is equal to that of the singer's three previous solo albums combined. This abundance is a scheme to exploit the "consumption"-oriented data that drives chart placements. Unlike most double albums, there's no concept here, and no attempt was made to separate the material into themes -- perhaps for the better, so as to not add another layer of gimmickry. It's artistically conservative, at least by
Brown's standards, covering his regular circuit of trap-styled slow jams, skeletal ballads, and brighter pop-oriented numbers, with the mood often swinging from playboy-hedonistic to sweet-romantic to scorned-acidic, sometimes within one track. The stand-outs are enough to make for a 45-minute listen that surpasses his previous album, and clearing out the tracks on which
Brown's tenor slips from pleading to whining makes it easier to reach them with convenience. Beneath better singles such as "Questions" (a dancehall-pop number cleverly referencing
Kevin Lyttle's "Turn Me On"), "High End" (a sleek, almost ambient cut with
Young Thug and
Future), and "Confidence" (possibly
Brown's most winsome song since
Exclusive), there's some depth, though it does require sifting. Among the better deep cuts is "Yellow Tape." A lurid rumination on the downside of fame, its foreboding hook has a lingering effect lasts almost as long as the album itself. ~ Andy Kellman