Jão feeds on the daily life of his emotional relationship with his partner Pedro Tófani when composing most of the songs on the album 'Memórias Póstumas' Hugo Comte / Disclosure ? ALBUM REVIEW Title: Memórias Póstumas Artist: Jão Rating: ? ? ? ? 1/2 ? This guy is different. Forget Jão who threw anguish and pain into the rough sea of ??“Pirata” (2021). Also forget Jão who sought grandeur between the melancholy and sensuality of the album “Super” (2023). In “Memórias Póstumas”, the artist's fifth studio album, released with fanfare last night, July 26, João Vitor Romania Balbino lowers the tones to atone for the pain of his father's death. On June 3, 2025, Carlos Alberto Balbino passed away at the age of 61, due to arrhythmia, in the middle of the hiatus announced by Jão in January and effectively beginning in April of that year, 2025. The mourning for his father's death permeates “Posthumous Memories” throughout 14 songs, almost all composed by Jão, alone or in partnership with his partner Pedro Tófani. “Death has already taken me so much and still asks for more”, reflects Jão in a verse from “Catedral”, an enticing song that opens the album named after the novel “Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas”, published in 1981 by the writer Machado de Assis (1839 – 1908). His father's death shuffled the pieces of Jão's soul, and this is reflected in the confessional flow of “Poshumous Memoirs”. Even when some of the 14 tracks seek an epic climax, such as “O amor”, a track with a slight oriental touch that features veteran Marco Mazzola on the team of music producers, Jão appears more internalized, within a private universe marked by losses. Within this process of existential introspection, the guitar plays a fundamental role in the architecture of songs like “Literatura”. But such internalization does not exclude swing, noticeable in the light funky beat of “Aurora”, a song introduced by Jão’s a cappella singing. And, in any case, it is worth highlighting that Jão has always been a singer and composer who wrote about real, personal emotions. In this light, “Memórias Póstumas” symbolizes a new (great) chapter in the extremely personal discography of Jão, a singer who discards well-worn formulas from the Brazilian pop universe in the musical production generally shared with Zebu. Suffice it to say that there are no features on the album's 14 tracks. Mourning runs through the album, but the raw material is love. In the ballad “Eu semper volto”, adorned with strings arranged by Érica Silva, Jão talks about the ebb and flow of the emotional universe shared with Pedro Tófani, without ceasing to appear vulnerable. “I almost always cry myself to sleep remembering what I was before”, he admits in the verse of the track, one of the most seductive on the album. “João” exposes another point of view of this emotional relationship, since the song was written only by Pedro Tófani. In the singing of this ballad, Jão explores high regions of the voice, approaching falsetto. Another ballad, “Tudo me remembra”, also feeds on the daily life of this relationship between insecurities and desires experienced by Jão in the city of São Paulo (SP), the metropolis that is home to the São Paulo artist born on November 3, 1974 in the interior of Américo Brasiliense (SP). An inspirational muse for a personal album, this day-to-day life also nourishes songs like “Coincidências” and “O architect”, two good romantic ballads that, perhaps because they are placed in sequence on the album, give the eventual feeling that “Memórias Póstumas” is an album that sometimes sounds repetitive in the second half, although it never loses its creative edge. This impression of déjà-vu is fueled by the song “Curioso”, heard following the two ballads. The seventh track in the album's 14 songs, “Jabuticabeira” symbolizes a momentary break in the album's wall of sound by explicitly flirting with the sound and sintered beats of 1980s rock, although the track ends in a mild folk atmosphere. Also noticeable on the track “Passeios nocturnes”, this flirtation with 80s rock had already appeared on the previous album “Super”, highlighting the coherence that guides Jão’s discography. And the fact is that Jão confirms in the fifth album that the evolution as a composer shown in “Super” was not a momentary thing. With a cohesive repertoire, “Memórias Póstumas” is an album that approaches perfection as it ends with the title track in which the laughter and voice of Jão's father can be heard, proving that, in every good work, the end is always in the beginning. By digging into the still raw wound of grief, and in everyday life also always raw from love, Jão presents an album with a handful of good, true, honest songs that echo personal feelings, but at the same time common to everyone. “Super” has already proven to be a great album, but “Memórias Póstumas” is even better and confirms Jão as one of the biggest names in Brazilian music in the 21st century. Cover of the album 'Memórias Póstumas', by Jão Hugo Comte / Disclosure