Through most of the album, Gomez dabbles in different genres and tries out different personas with little success. Following her friend Taylor Swift’s lead, she adds ’80s pop sounds to “Sober” and “Me & the Rhythm,” but is unable to back them up with the charm and exuberance that Swift brought to her latest record. On the tropical house track “Survivors,” her vocals are sluggish enough to induce sleep. Unfortunately, you’ll immediately be awakened by Gomez’s loud and unconvincing Shakira impersonation in “Body Heat.” The album’s opening and closing numbers, “Revival” and “Rise,” offer vaguely empowering messages, but these are muddled by strip club vibes from the fawning lead single, “Good For You.”
Revival’s best songs deal with the emotional turmoil of Gomez’s relationship with her handsome, hard-living ex. Whispering over the sparse, thumping beat, dark guitar line, and gasping background vocals of “Hands to Myself,” Gomez admits that it wasn’t easy to leave The Biebs. “I mean, I could, but why would I want to?” she quips, before the song ends in a booming crescendo. On the following track, “Same Old Love,” a grainy trip-hop piano loop leads into a scathing hook, written and recorded with Charli XCX. “I’m so sick of that same old love / My body’s had enough,” the two women snarl. But as the feisty Brit injects the song with her unique personality, you realize how much Gomez struggles to do the same throughout the album.
It’s reassuring that Gomez is moving beyond the generic club music that pervaded her previous album, Stars Dance. But she clearly hasn’t yet found her niche in the pop landscape. With Revival, she takes listeners along on an uncomfortable and ultimately fruitless search for it.