After half a decade away from solo releases — time largely spent performing in arenas alongside his brothers — ‘Sunday Best’ finds Nick Jonas stepping back out on his own. Rather than striding into the spotlight, though, they’re turned down low.
Four years since welcoming his first daughter into the world, the 33-year-old’s fifth solo album finds him reflecting on his purpose. More emotionally direct than his previous work, it’s a collection of songs that frequently lean into warmth and gentleness, playing out like a series of almost-silent admissions made during a late-night walk.
Heavily inspired by the musician’s early years spent singing in his local church choir, there’s little of the pop polish and few of the glossy hooks you may associate with a Jonas project here.
Country-pop opener Sweet To Me zooms in on the small details of the musician’s life that have shaped him, from visits to Blockbuster with his father to watching the plants grow in his childhood garden.
Favouring lived-in textures and subtle sonic touches, Hope channels some of the swagger of his short-lived The Administration project, while Handprints finds Jonas expressing his desire to slow down the pace of his life over soft percussion and emotive strings.
It’s a style that suits the youngest Jonas brother, but there are a handful of moments that stray from that lowkey feel in a jarring fashion, with R&B cut 911 and the Motown-influenced Seeing Ghosts sitting uncomfortably in the tracklist. Aphrodite, which was originally intended as a Jonas Brothers song, is a largely colourless ballad, lacking the personality that shines through the album’s more introspective cuts.
A recalibration through trial and error, ‘Sunday Best’ works best when Jonas is using music as a vessel to sketch a life reframed by responsibility, love, and the ache of self-assessment. Showcasing a more soulful side than we have seen of him on record before, there are moments that feel truly special here, but overall, it’s an album that suffers from a tendency to overthink things.
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