Tim Qualls has been one of Houston’s best-kept secrets for 15 years as a musician. His new album, Feel, should propel him out of the city if the gods of pop music are just.
Since 2021, Qualls has been working full time as a musician thanks to a work furlough during the pandemic. A series of incredible singles, starting with “Heartbeat,” demonstrated his talent. Feel is the natural evolution of his sound. When not involved in his own stuff, Qualls has been songwriting and producing for other musicians including La Voz contestant Raymundo Monje Jr.
The ten-track record starts off with “Stay,” a tune that embodies the soft soul and lush R&B soundscapes that have always been Qualls’s hallmark. A bittersweet ode to a lover being asked to remain despite hard times, in this song Qualls uses his distinctive plaintive voice in a way that never sounds begging or whiny.
The track is perfect for the vibe of 2023, a year that’s been dominated by albums like Miley Cyrus’s Endless Summer Vacation and Everyone is Dead Except Us from Wolfie’s Just Fine. After years of frantic plague and devolving political stability, it seems like everyone is singing about lonely hearts and inner strength. Qualls does it as good as the big acts.
“That was the first song I wrote for the album,” said Qualls during a phone interview. “This feels like the start of something. Everything from the album comes out of it. Earlier in my career on I’d sing about sex and women. This is my John Mayer’s “Come Back to Bed,” my Sam Smith. It’s a total maturation of what I used to do.
By far the best track on the album is the second single, “Grave.” Qualls turns up the energy just a smidge for this hard denial of openness. Qualls sings about refusing to tell a lover about a troubled past, imploring someone to leave the past dead.
“Grave” has a thumping beat that makes it far more danceable than the rest of the album. The lo-fi, highly distorted guitar solo in the middle that rises out of a murky musical background drone sounds like someone honestly losing the last of their patience. It’s a pity it comes so late in the album, which sometimes edges too far into maudlin territory in the first half. Qualls has gotten more pop over the years, and “Grave” is the best evidence of that.
“I’m such a fan of a really good pop song,” he said. “I made a lot of the production first and then began mumbling the word ‘grave’ over and over. It was basically written backwards. It sounds like a song about cheating on the surface, but it’s a little bit more layered. When you get into a relationship with someone, all the things in the closet that you’re afraid will mess up the vibe are there.”
Not that the maudlin parts are bad. “I Swear to God I Tried” is a hell of ballad. A lonely, lugubrious cello carries the melody over a minimalist piano. It’s an effective piece of mastering that guides the listener around the emotional song. The ending ramps up into a powerful electronic arpeggiation that swells but never quite breaks. That’s fitting for the song’s lyrics, which focus on failure.
Feel is almost entirely a love album. There are songs that deal with family life and politics, but it remains quintessentially a collection of soul ballads. Qualls is always hawking these tiny bottles of loss and affection out of the trunk of his sonic car. While it robs his work of some dynamics in terms of subject, he avoids being a one-note artist by exploring facets of love. He may mostly have one narrative focus in his work, but he has a wild time within that narrow confine.
This is an album meant to played in a bedroom, either for happy reasons or for heartbreaking ones. Qualls is a master of both moods, a two-faced god of the heart with a penchant for retro electronica elements and church choir backing vocals in his hymns. Ever since he broke onto the scene with This is Our Land, he’s been getting better and better. This is his best yet, even if it’s a bit melancholy. With some chagrin, he acknowledges how the trauma of the last few years have contributed to his new sound.
“Everyone is coming out of the 2020 pandemic world.,” he said. “We were all in it the same, but all these artists went to work on their feelings. Over the last year or two, everyone is reflecting on their Lives too. We’re all trying to portray the last few years.”
Feel is available for stream and purchase now.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
