With Water Made Us, Jamila Woods takes us on a radically honest journey through the complexities of love. The opening track, “Bugs,” is a patient slow burn about not letting the little things hinder one’s love for their partner. “It bugs me, but I do it for ya,” the Chicago-based singer-songwriter admits during the chorus. That selfless sentiment defines the album’s identity early on, with “Bugs” ending with a broader evocation of embracing the world’s imperfections: “Don’t kill this bug/Slide a little paper under this glass/Let a few bugs live.”
Songs like “Tiny Garden” and “Practice” grapple with building a strong foundation for relationships, while “Send a Dove,” “Wreckage Room,” and “Thermostat” find Woods attempting to pick up the pieces in the wake of those relationships crumbling. “Send a Dove” begins with a breezy rhythm that takes a dramatic turn toward the somber at the halfway point, effectively resetting the tone of the album in the process. Compared to songs like “Bugs,” “Wolfsheep” puts a more feral spin on the album’s broader themes: “Could a ring become a shackle?/Can I tell between who loves/Who’s hunting me?”
The album is interspersed with interludes that couch Woods’s songs with casual observations about love. “Let the Cards Fall,” for one, is more of a conversation than a song, as Woods and guests Indya Moore and Krista Franklin discuss the intricacies of romantic relationships. The sounds of cards being shuffled and dealt in the background gives the track an authentic, lived-in quality that makes the listener feel as if they’re sitting around a poker table with close friends.
Elsewhere, the spoken-word “I Miss All My Exes” shifts the album’s narrative to focus more on how Woods herself receives love, as she recites a list of simple things that her previous partners have done for her to make her feel loved, from opening the car door to telling her that she’s beautiful. Water Made Us is an undeniably human album, authentic and sincere in its navigation and preservation of love, all told through the lens of Woods’s own experience.
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