C, XOXO

What horizon is that? If the production lacks personality, the same can't always be said for the persona Cabello adopts here. This Camila often feels clumsy, half-drawn, at odds with the music's confidence. Although she declares on “Chanel No. 5” that she's “a cute girl with a sick mind,” much of the record contains little evidence of twisted or spontaneous thinking. Cabello's lyrics can be so associative as to be absurd. Daisy signifiers like “Cigarette, candy necklace on my hips, butterfly on my wrist” add more than just PG-13 intensity.

C, XOXO powerfully reminiscent of the kind of album Cabello aspires to: A MOTOMAMI, Blondethe Something to Give Each Other, the kind of record revealed through collage, deftly weaving loose strands that telegraph the artist's taste and sensibility. Aside from some great crazy moments like the Gucci Mane sample on “I Luv It” or Pitbull's failed reprise of “BOAT,” Cabello's choices are more often than not either random or convenient. When she gives an unexpected shout-out to Haruki Murakami in “Chanel No. 5,” it feels like she's taking a stand. It doesn't help that it's made to fit into such a basic, and vaguely oriental, rhyme scheme: “Fold for me like origami/Magic and true like Murakami/Red chipped nails, I'm wabi-sabi.”

Her features are a mixed bag in the same way. Her sultry, steely vocals on “Dade County Dreaming” compliment JT and Yung Miami's staccato flow beautifully. Her voice is sweetly mapped to PinkPantheress' effervescent production on the very short “pink xoxo.” But there's little chemistry with Playboi Carti, who's left mumbling to himself on the frantic, over-the-top “I Luv It,” and Cabello's honesty is no match for Lil Nas X's spontaneous wilderness on “He Knows.” That her duet with Drake, “Hot Uptown,” arrives on the back of his bruising loss to Kendrick Lamar is a miracle of bad timing, because it's brilliant: a must-have hit that plays to their respective songwriting strengths brilliantly and married.

Cabello is so willing to explore new sounds that you occasionally wonder if she should be crediting other artists for the raw material she's working with. Even though it's definitely Lana-approved, “June Gloom” hides a little too much from the singer's laconic flow for comfort. ditto Amaarae on 'He Knows', which fits her sweaty, eclectic vision of Afrobeat a little too well. It still feels almost psychedelic how Charli XCX's rip on “I Luv It” is, especially in light of the album's title.

Cabello has the juice to be her own artist and is more than capable as a writer, but the risks she takes are inherently safe when they've all been taken before. Her best songs C, XOXO record an acute emotional shift with a compelling honesty. “BOAT” is great, a song that gets the last word in a breakup that will never get to say. Cabello tracks her turbulent emotions in real time as her voice jumps from Auto-Tuned wailing to piercing anger while a subtle sample of Pitbull's “Hotel Room” slips in, half-laughing, half-longing. It's sad, refined and utterly unique – a proof of concept in a room full of prototypes.