Demi Lovato ‘It’s Not That Deep’ Review: Shallow Waters Are Noisy

The obvious factors of reference for Demi Lovato’s It’s Not That Deep are Katy Perry’s 143 and Charli XCX’s Brat—the previous buying and selling in drained, by-the-numbers home beats and the latter elevating the creative maximalism of hyperpop to the mainstream. It’s Not That Deep sits comfortably someplace between these two wildly divergent dance-pop albums, merely nodding to Brat’s affect however bearing rather more persona than 143.

Tracks like “Little Bit” characteristic glitchy, hyperpop-adjacent beats and vocal enhancing, whereas the standout “Frequency” throws it again to the early 2010s, when songs like Rihanna’s “The place Have You Been” and Kesha’s “Blow” dominated pop radio. Elsewhere, “Quick” melds diva-house verses—which properly showcase Lovato’s vocal vary—with stuttery beats and EDM synths.

Lyrically, It’s Not That Deep is made up largely of affection songs that, true to the album’s title, really feel much less private and particular than these of Lovato’s previous releases. “Let You Go” is a midtempo breakup music punctuated by some ’80s-coded keyboards, whereas “Right here All Evening” sees the singer in search of solace from a damaged coronary heart—the place else?—on the proverbial dance flooring.

One exception is “Sorry to Myself,” which finds Lovato obliquely relating her previous psychological well being struggles: “Sorry for the ravenous, sorry for the burnout,” she laments. And “In My Head” is what many anticipated Taylor Swift’s The Lifetime of a Showgirl can be: infectious synth-pop paired with autofictional lyricism. “I ought to be an creator/The best way that I can twist each phrase, each story, and switch you into the hero,” Lovato sings in a cadence not dissimilar to Swift’s.

With solely two of its 11 tracks clocking in longer than three minutes, It’s Not That Deep doesn’t go away loads of room for error. The album, although, does lose steam in its last stretch. The cheeky “Kiss,” for one, suffers from some painful innuendo like “The slower the movement, the wetter the ocean” and “It’s not that deep except you need it to be/I’ll take the stick and drive it manually.” However whereas “Ghost,” the album’s sole ballad, closes issues out on a predictable word, the music no less than builds to a uneven electropop climax that retains it tethered to the remainder of It’s Not That Deep.