We review “Fudge”, the fifth album by Michael Kiwanuka

The fifth album of Michael Kiwanuka, “Fudge”is a very special one in his career, not so much because it is the first to appear after that stroke that he suffered in 2025 and made him suspend concerts and put his career on pause, which also, but because it is a direct response to his previous work, “Small Changes” (24), and the separation of his two main producers and collaborators, Inflo and Danger Mouse, searching for his own sound outside of his long shadow.

And this album was recorded in 2024 shortly after the sessions of that totally continuous album, you could say stagnant, with the sound of his wonderful “Kiwanuka” of 2019. It is evident that Kiwanuka was not entirely happy with “Small Changes” and “Fudge” It is a kind of reaction to it, normal that it begins with a quote from the jazz pianist Chick Corea in which he says that “You have to be clear about what you like, not what you think someone else might like.”

For all this, “Fudge” It is a less produced album, more spartan, more focused on the musicians playing live, although without completely losing its hallmarks. For example, he includes string arrangements on several occasions, but it is a much more spontaneous album, as can be seen at the beginning of “Across The Sky”in which someone is heard hitting the record button with Kiwanuka playing his acoustic guitar. Although that does not mean that Kiwanuka does not know what to do with them, just listen to the epic and elegiac “Love in My Heart” which increases in intensity until bursting into an ocean of strings and a great guitar solo, classic elements of their sound, before ending in a beautiful piano and strings coda.

Maybe that’s something else he’s into. “Fudge” surpass its predecessor, a very correct album, but which lacked some great songs, something that does not happen here with a higher level in general in the composition and that also takes into account “Just Another Moment” a worthy successor to gems like “Cold Little Heart” either “Hero”.

Several songs are built on acoustic guitars, sounding as if they were first arrangements, as if he did not want to lose spontaneity to seek more complex arrangements, something that can be heard in the end with “Swings And Roundabouts”. “Stars” It will be the favorite of those who appreciate the Kiwanuka guitarist, although it also has a great chorus with call and response that is enhanced at the end with another great string arrangement that ends up perfectly accompanying his magnificent solo.

In short, it is an album with which Kiwanuka seeks his own path, being quite sure of what he wants, trying not to repeat a formula that seemed exhausted, without caring too much about the expectations about how it should sound. Now he just needs to fully recover and be able to continue on that new path.