Shawn Mendes didn’t ‘treat us better’ with his new album Illuminate which dropped on Sept. 23.

Mendes’ album seems to be one of the most boring albums this year. The 18 year old singer/songwriter tried to make a more throwback pop album like Meghan Trainor seemed to do this year but missed the peak. He had lots of good starts, but they just kind of fell of the edge.

“Mercy” is anchored by Mendes’ strong singing voice. He brings life and energy with the way he belts. The song could have been a legitimate hit. But the instrumental itself  lacks the punch the song needs so desperately to wake it up and make not sound like every other song out there.

In “Treat You Better” Mendes shows that he can handle a mature subject in his writing, an abusive relationship. His lyrics and vocals really shine through on this one however it sounds like every other song he’s released.

Along with this song most of the track just blends into one continuous song with the same boring middle-school slow dance beat.  

The instrumentals are really what hurt this album. Mendes does very well with his songwriting and vocals, however if he wants to play in the big-leagues, he needs to step up his game and create a more interesting back and more variety to these beats as well.

But, perhaps the lowest point of this album is in his song “Understand” where around the three minute mark he starts to pull a Justin Bieber and give a speech in the middle of his song.  I don’t quite ‘understand’ why he would do that.

This album, while not as obnoxious as his first one, is still pretty bad. He needs to find the happy medium between obnoxious and put-me-to-sleep boring. If you are Mendes fan, stick the singles because they were released first for a reason.