D'Angelo Releases A New Album After 14 Years

Fourteen years of secrecy vanished in a flash Monday when m.i.a. soul star D’Angelo surprised the world with a whole new album.

The now 40-year-old star released the full, 12 song “Black Messiah” to iTunes, after sharing a 15-second teaser for it on YouTube, and plugging it with some TV ad time, over the weekend.

“Messiah,” which is credited to D’Angelo and the band The Vanguard, represents the star’s first new music since his smash “Voodoo” album back in 2000. It’s one of the most anticipated works since Gun n Roses’ endlessly delayed “Chinese Democracy,” which finally surfaced in 2008 after a 15-year delay.

D’Angelo had been testing the waters of a comeback for the last few years, playing concerts that featured several songs which turned up on the new disc.

Despite its lengthy incubation period, “Messiah” contains at least one thoroughly up-to-date element. In a statement released with the album, D’Angelo wrote: “It’s about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decided to make change happen.”

“Not every song on this album is politically charged (though many are),” he wrote. “But calling this album ‘Black Messiah’ creates a landscape where those songs can live to the fullest.”

It’s good that D’Angelo spelled out his intentions with the album because many lyrics aren’t easily deciphered. In one of the most charged tracks, “1000 Deaths,” the star sunk his voice in a thick stew of funk and distortion. A sample of a speech about Jesus as a black man opens the song, leading into an intentionally harsh assault of mile-wide bass lines and mangled guitars.

Luckily, the music captures the intended anger and confusion in a way words never could.

D’Angelo created the songs with bassist Pino Palladino, drummer Questlove Amir and second drummer James Gadson. Kendra Foster helped with the lyrics. The songs draw from the neo-soul sound that made the singer a star on singles like “How Does It Feel” (whose video image of a nearly naked D’Angelo make him a star). But for “Messiah,” he and the new band came up with a far more dense and confrontational sound.

Hints of prime Prince peek out here and there - think “Sign of the Times.” But its filtered through the kind of industrial rock intensity Kanye West drew on for his ground-breaking “Yeezus” album last year.

The album clearly aspires to the political awareness and anger of classics like Sly And The Family Stone’s “There’s A Riot Goin’ On” or Funkadelic’s “America Eats Its Young.” But D’Angelo has his own take on the sensibility.

At root, “Black Messiah” aims to deconstruct funk. In the same way Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On” abstracted soul, D’Angelo’s “Messiah” finds new textures and a fresh scale for funk. It uses uncommonly rich bass lines and psychedelic guitar to widen the sound. Many of the keyboard parts recall the adventure of ‘70s jazz-fusion.

D’Angelo’s vocals, densely layered, and broad in range, give the difficulty of the music warmth. So does a motif of silken R&B guitar lines which recall the ‘70s hits of the Stylistics.

It’s a striking mix of sensuality and abrasion, giving a long-missing star a fresh claim on what’s current.

SOURCE