Review Summary: The fulfilment of a 14 year promise.
Last night, I heard
Black Messiah’s lead single “Really Love” on the radio for the first time. Like a thousand dollar bottle of fine wine served in between cans of soda, it caught me off guard. I didn’t think I’d hear it on the radio at all, let alone so soon. Its cascading fingerpicked guitars and thick strings shimmered over the wavelength as I motored my car down a strip of empty highway. When it ended, the light hiss of FM static sat for a moment before the DJ came over the air again. “Wow”, he stated plainly. Wow, indeed.
D’Angelo, born Michael Eugene Archer, hasn’t engaged with current radio trends since 1995’s
Brown Sugar. That album clicked in nicely to neo-soul and new jack swing playlists on R&B stations and the boom-bap shuffle of “Lady” became his biggest hit to date. But with 2000’s
Voodoo, he disengaged. In a year dominated by the ultra-synthetic sounds of Destiny's Child he created an album that seemed to float through the years. To this day it doesn’t sound like an old album, it never engages in retro indulgence or panders to a “real music” audience, it simply steps outside of the timeline to become a staggering testament to the power of craftsmanship and vision. The closest it had to a radio hit, “Untitled (How Does it Feel?)”, came with a music video that presented D'Angelo, not as the prepackaged symbol of black male sexuality R&B stars have been for years, but an erotically charged portrait of a human being. The effect of the “Untitled” music video would become too much for D’Angelo as he watched the artistry he longed to present become overwhelmed by his new image.
He disappeared. Whenever news did surface about D'Angelo it was tragic. A nearly fatal car accident, alcoholism, rehab, soliciting prostitution. A Spin article, published in 2008 and titled, guttingly, “D’Angelo: What the Hell Happened?”, prominently featured a sad mugshot of D’Angelo, looking chubby and distressed. By the end of the decade, even the most hardcore D’Angelo fans couldn’t weather the storm of bad news, a new album seemed impossible. Then, in 2012, he was back. He looked healthy and sounded great, embarking on a tour and conducting a few interviews. Album talk came up and this time it really seemed like it was going to happen.
Then he disappeared, again. D’Angelo stayed dark for almost all of 2014 as album talk faded and shows were announced less and less until, out of nowhere, everything seemed to just happen.
Black Messiah was announced last Friday, a song was debuted Saturday, and the album came out Sunday. 14 years, meet 3 days.
The reason D’Angelo’s post-
Brown Sugar music feels so strange on the radio isn’t because the songs don’t sound current. As our post-Adele pop landscape shows us, plenty of modern pop songs that draw heavy influence from classic disco and soul can fit in fine next to walloping EDM bangers. No, the reason they sound so strange is because they’re confrontationally quiet. Load any of
Black Messiah’s 12 tracks into the audio editor of your choice and you’ll find plenty of headroom in the waveforms, no brickwalling here. This is, in part, a testament to the impeccable quality in which everything was recorded. The commitment to analog recording goes far beyond mere fetishism, the warmth of analog sound is an integral part of the music here and every instrument is rendered with striking amounts of space. The rhythm section in particular sounds absolutely incredible, each kick drum, every satisfying
thrum of the bass hits you right in the chest.
The other element that makes
Black Messiah such a roomy record is how D’Angelo’s voice is often the quietest thing on it. He’s so low in the mix that the indecipherability of his lyrics on
Black Messiah has already become a mini-meme. On “1000 Deaths” his singing is both quiet and strained through a filter, overwhelmed by the repetitive
thud-thud-thud of the rhythm while “Really Love” could be in another language altogether. This isn’t because D’Angelo is shy but because he understands there’s power in restraint. When he lets that voice fly towards the end of “1000 Deaths” or when the titular sentiment comes through clear during the chorus of “Really Love” (“I’m in really love with you”), they leap from the haze and leave a mark.
All that restraint makes for a lot of tension and it’s the ways D’Angelo disperse that tension throughout
Black Messiah that gives it its power. The stunning “The Charade” builds to an almost climax, just when it sounds like the song is about to really take off it gets tampered down by a swooping vocal melody. Then D takes all his vocal overdubs into the stratosphere for a crystalline instant before rough snare cracks bring him back down to earth. More often, tension is dissolved through
Black Messiah’s disarming playfulness. If D’Angelo has been feeling the weight of following a masterpiece over the last 14 years, it’s not showing. “The Door” prominently features a downright playful whistled hook to go along with a country-ish shuffle. On “Sugah Daddy” D’Angelo actually pulls this lyric off, “I hit it so I made the pussy fart/She said it's talkin' to ya, talkin to ya Daddy.” You can almost hear the band trying not to crack up behind him. To drive the point home, someone starts squeaking into the mouthpiece of a trumpet, sounding just like, well, you know.
Plenty of that looseness comes from how well this band knows each other. There’s a reason this album is credited to D’Angelo & The Vanguard. These guys are
communicating. Pino Palladino’s fluid bass groove, ?estlove and James Gadson’s unstoppable, in the pocket drum beats, along with D’Angelo’s understated guitar work, make listening to this album feel like being in the company of masters. Always conscious of mood and atmosphere, D’Angelo & The Vanguard work their craft with astounding patience, letting each song rise and fall as gracefully as the ocean.
In the wake of widespread protests against police brutality D’Angelo and his team pulled out all the stops to get this album on shelves as soon as possible. These songs have been floating around in some form or another as far back as 2007 but some of the lyrics on this album sound extremely vital to right now. “All we wanted was a chance to talk/Instead we got outlined in chalk,” he sings on “The Charade”. “Sons and fathers die, soldiers, daughters killed/Question ain't do we have resources to rebuild/Do we have the will?” goes a crushing lyric on “Till It’s Done (Tutu)”. “1000 Deaths” is a trip through a soldier’s dark night of the soul as he grapples with his new purpose in life, “I can't believe I'm so caught up in the thrill [...] Locked and loaded up and I know the drill/They're gonna send me over the hill.” These lyrics are topical and current to any generation of black strife, but D had the good sense and generosity to understand we needed to hear this now. It’s the urgent indictment of our times that often sounds as feather gentle as a lullaby.
Black Messiah exists in the same universe as
Voodoo but is equally informed by
Brown Sugar. It’s universally shorter than
Voodoo, not a single song here hits the six minute mark, making
Black Messiah a leaner, more approachable record. It’s loose in ways that the weighty
Voodoo wasn't but possesses the full band commune that
Brown Sugar lacked.
“If you're wondering about the shape I'm in/hope it ain't my abdomen/that you're referring to.” Those wry, funny lyrics come from “Back in the Future (Part II)” and should serve as the final dismissal of the black Adonis the “Untitled” video made him into. Throughout
Black Messiah D’Angelo sounds utterly unencumbered by… anything really. Not the pressures of following a masterpiece, the anxiety of returning after 14 years away, or the stress of stepping back into a public eye that best remembers you for your abdomen. He sounds elated to be singing again. He sounds ecstatic at being heard again. He sounds excited for people to hear this music. He sounds free.
