The Baltimore native spent his teenage years training to become an opera singer; later, he spent time in Philadelphia’s neo-soul scene and released his debut EP, 2016’s blisters, on the experimental electronic label Tri Angle. Since then, serpentwithfeet’s sacred/profane music has had the scope to take in his big ideas and sweeping influences, though his third album, 2024’s GRIP, nudged his “pagan gospel” music into much freakier territory. That album embraced turn-of-the-century R&B à la Timbaland and Darkchild to tell a strobe-lit love story that unfolded in the shadows of the club. A year later, the nine new tracks of GRIP SEQUEL showcase serpent at his most vulnerable (literally, in the case of “SEAGULL,” where he romps naked on the beach). “My heart, the ocean, mostly unexplored/My body, cold metal, longing to be forged,” he sings on the hushed, impressionistic “WANDERER.” That classical training shines through on “WRITHING IN THE WIND” over understated piano and a faint Jersey club beat, as he exhales, “A mangled heart writhing in the wind/Let me mend it.”
