Jessie Ware That! Feels Good! Review: This! Feels Camp!

When U.K. soul singer Jessie Ware reinvented herself as a disco diva for 2020’s euphoric What’s Your Pleasure?, it seemed like it might be a pandemic-induced passing fancy—like baking or Zoom happy hours. That! Feels Good!, though, doubles down on its predecessor’s mission statement, answering the titular query with an enthusiastic exclamation.

That! Feels Good! is horn-ier and, if possible, hornier, opening with a moan and a bass groove that leaves no doubt about where things are headed. “That feels good, do it again,” Ware croons on the title track. The album is more Disco than What’s Your Pleasure?, leaning into the campier strains of disco music, with only a couple of detours into post-disco terrain like “Beautiful People.”

What’s Your Pleasure? boasts a more sophisticated, diverse palette—including Italo, house, and funk—but its follow-up’s fluffier philosophy reflects Ware’s obvious elation at finally being able to bring her music to life in a club setting. “Why does all the purest love get filtered through machines?” she ponders on the standout “Begin Again,” a track originally born via Zoom during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The lyric feels like an acknowledgement of both the realities of modern life and the album’s throwback approach, which includes live horns, guitar solos, and disco strings.

Like What’s Your Pleasure?, the majority of That! Feels Good! was co-written and produced by James Ford of electronic duo Simian Mobile Disco, but the album also finds Ware collaborating with Stuart Price for the first time on a handful of tracks. With its mesmerizing “la, la, la” refrain, breathy spoken intro, and wobbly bassline, the swooning “Pearls” is pure disco camp, but other Price-assisted cuts—like the diva-house anthem “Free Yourself,” the hype track “Freak Me Now,” and the midtempo “Lightning”—lend the proceedings a more contemporary sound courtesy of pitched-down vocals and glossy synth swaths.

The kitschy “Shake the Bottle” is, perhaps, too cute by half, while “Hello Love” is a slice of ’70s blue-eyed soul that veers perilously close to the kind of soft-rock that was popular during and after the disco era, but, as with most of the material here, these songs are elevated by Ware’s versatile vocals. Elsewhere, she squeals and vamps like early-’80s Tina Marie on the title track, and gloriously reaches into her upper register during the ecstatic chorus of “Pearls.”

“Remember, pleasure is a right,” Ware declares on “That! Feels Good!” The album’s emphasis on pleasure is neither ironic nor glib, but rather genuine, if partly aspirational. That! Feels Good! both embraces a past where cellphones don’t exist and a present (and future) where dance floors are wide open and where we can at least indulge in the fantasy of feeling good.