Justin Bieber’s surprise album gets lukewarm reviews

Justin Bieber has surprised fans by releasing a new album titled Swag, his first in four years – but critics have not been bowled over by the comeback.

In a three-star review, the Guardian said it has “moments of brilliance”, but is “no long-awaited masterpiece”.

The Telegraph gave two stars, agreeing that it is “not the return of a pop titan”, and describing it as “an uncomfortable and unfiltered cry for help”.

The paper pointed to spoken-word interludes including the “self-pitying, super-short Therapy Session”, on which he addresses the toll of press speculation about his mental health; and another titled Standing On Business, which features a viral clip in which he confronted a photographer.

The video, filmed on Father’s Day, showed the exasperated singer saying: “I’m a dad. I’m a husband. You’re not getting it. It’s not clocking to you. I’m standing on business.”

The video was widely circulated and remixed online, and now features as part of the promotion of the new album as well as in the track listing.

“Standing on business” has gained currency as slang for standing up for yourself and taking care of your responsibilities and ambitions.

With a run time of just under an hour, the teen icon-turned-megastar collaborates with a host of rappers on Swag including Sexxy Red, Cash Cobain and Gunna.

Its title appears to hark back to the singer’s 2012 hit Boyfriend, featuring the line “swag, swag, swag, on you”.

Promotional pictures shared by the Canadian singer feature his wife, Hailey Bieber, and their son – at points being held over his head.

The Guardian’s Rachel Aroesti wrote that the album “opens extremely promisingly with All I Can Take, a hauntological twist on spotless, energetic 1980s R&B”.

Overall, it’s “very considered, cleverly nostalgic and subtly satisfying – there’s not a craven chart smash in earshot”, she wrote.

“Lyrically, however, Swag isn’t such a classy and thoughtful affair. Dadz Love is an inane celebration of Bieber’s nascent fatherhood that essentially just repeats the title into meaninglessness.

“The other love songs – which are addressed to his wife, Hailey, whose viral lip gloss-holding phone case gets a shout-out on Go Baby – rarely transcend superficial, saccharine cliche.

“But they are at least preferable to the eye-watering spoken-word segments.”

The Independent’s Adam White awarded two stars, saying the album is “just further confirmation of the artistic lethargy that has plagued his most recent work, and an unfortunate insight into a man who seems awkwardly caught between sex, God, and self-pity”.

Billboard’s Andrew Unterberger said it was “Bieber as we’ve never really heard him before – stripped of most of his usual big pop trappings, with a much more organic-sounding, alt-R&B-focused sound”.

But fans hoping for an album full of songs like his 2015 smash hit Sorry may be disappointed, he added.

The album was awarded 7/10 by Clash magazine’s Robin Murray, who said its 21 tracks have lyrics “that move from an emotive depiction of fatherhood through to in-jokes”.

“Stylistically, it broadly sits on 90s-adjacent synth pop – sometimes fixed in its approach, sometimes vaporised. It’s always colourful, and – for all its breadth – it’s always entertaining.”

However, Murray added: “One of the core strengths of SWAG is also its weakness: there’s a lot of it. His first album in four years, this feels like an outpouring of ideas, a wiping clean of the slate.”

The album drop also comes on the back of fans’ worries for Bieber’s state of mind. In recent months, the singer has shared multiple posts online about the intrusion of paparazzi in his personal life.

Bieber’s marriage has also been under the spotlight after another controversial social media post. The singer celebrated his wife featuring on the cover of Vogue with a social media post detailing an argument between them.

The lyrics of Daisies, the second song on Swag, appear to allude to the couple’s relationship with “falling petals do you love me or not” and “you said forever babe, did you mean it or not?”

Other song titles on the album seem to touch on religious themes including Devotion, Soulful and Forgiveness, in keeping with Bieber’s Christian faith.