A Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels 3
Mass Appeal Records
Killer Mike and El-P return with the third Run the Jewels album, and hip-hop's most incendiary stoner duo are still righteous and defiant.
Mixing braggadocio with trenchant social and political commentary, RTJ sound a little bit darker this time around, perhaps owing to producer El-P's moody, spacier beats. Still, RTJ 3 slams, hard. "Talk to Me," the album's livid first single, finds Killer Mike, a Bernie Sanders supporter, rapping about battling a devil with a "bad toupee and a spray tan." "Don't Get Captured" is a denouncement of everything from gentrification to police brutality and "2100," featuring Boots, who also appeared on Run the Jewels 2, is all minor-key synths and watery bounce, mixing paranoia and frustration.
With guest appearances from Trina, Danny Brown, Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio, an uncredited Zack de la Rocha and others, there's not a weak track among the 14 here, making Killer Mike and El-P three-for-three since releasing the first Run the Jewels album in 2013.
"And the crowd goes RTJ! RTJ! RTJ!"
Hot tracks: Along with those already mentioned, the shivering "Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)," "Stay Gold," "A Report to the Shareholders/Kill Your Masters" and "Legend Has It"
-- SEAN CLANCY
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
A-Kate Bush
Before the Dawn
Concord
Kate Bush's exquisite Before the Dawn is a massive live album taken from her series of 22 concerts in 2014.
With tantalizingly few chart hits and dominated by two conceptual collections, the triple album conjures its magic spells with Bush's powerfully expressive voice, her captivating songs and the integrity of an artistic vision that nurtures and challenges the imagination.
By all accounts, her residency at London's Hammersmith Odeon two years ago was a musical and a visual delight. Before the Dawn reproduces only the sounds -- it seems no video release is planned -- but still effectively captures the emotions and the thrill of the performances.
While ignoring her first four albums -- which means no "Wuthering Heights" or "Babooshka" -- the first disc is a superior opening with highlights like "Hounds of Love," "Lily" and "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)."
The second disc is "The Ninth Wave," once side two of the Hounds of Love album, about a woman adrift in the ocean waiting to be rescued. The third disc includes "A Sky of Honey," the second half of 2005's Aerial, a journey through a summer day. "Cloudbusting" is the graceful, triumphant closer.
Bush's son, Albert "Bertie" McIntosh, sings some leads and has a couple of duets with his mother on disc three. Some dialogue and longer musical passages remind listeners that, onstage, there was something more going on. Superior musicianship is provided by the likes of Omar Hakim, John Giblin and David Rhodes.
Shunning overdubs or re-recordings, Before the Dawn sounds preciously and powerfully alive.
Hot tracks: "Hounds of Love," "Running Up That Hill," "Cloudbusting"
-- PABLO GORONDI
The Associated Press
A-Various Artists
Waxing the Gospel: Mass Evangelism and the Phonograph, 1890-1900
Archeophone
Waxing the Gospel is a three-disc set of 102 gramophone and wax-cylinder recordings from the 1890s, many newly discovered. With a 408-page hardcover book of liner notes, it is an otherworldly glimpse into end-of-the-century American voices, mostly male, mostly white, singing vibrant Protestant hymns and reciting prayers.
The first CD collects commercial releases, beginning with a reading of "The Lord's Prayer" by Emile Berliner, who invented the gramophone (and staged its public debut at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute in 1888); it includes the earliest known recording of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" (1894).
The second CD focuses on famous evangelist Ira D. Sankey, known as "the sweet singer of Methodism." The third and most fascinating disc collects amateur and home recordings, including 18 from a Methodist camp meeting in Ocean Grove, N.J., in 1897. This CD includes the only known recording of Fanny Crosby, writer of more than 8,000 hymns, as well as family singalongs and children's choirs.
The sound quality varies wildly and the performances can be stilted, but Waxing the Gospel is an absorbing, revealing historical document.
Hot tracks: "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," "The Lord's Prayer"
-- STEVE KLINGE
The Philadelphia Inquirer
B+The Delfonics
40 Classic Soul Sides
Real Gone
The Legacy reissue label released a download-only hits collection of the superlative and soulful Delfonics in 2015.
Now, Real Gone has brought the set to CD as 40 Classic Soul Sides. The trio personified the sweet, harmonic side of Philadelphia soul with hits such as 1968's No. 4 hit "La-La Means I Love You," 1970's No. 10 hit "Didn't I Blow Your Mind (This Time)" and jewels such as "Ready or Not Here I Come," "Tryin' to Make a Fool of Me" and "Tell Me This Is a Dream."
The singing is fine, even if some tracks aren't exactly classics. But the performances never let a listener down. Also included are "The Shadow of Your Smile" and "The Look of Love," made all the sweeter in the Delfonics' beautiful vocals.
The superb liner notes enrich the two-CD package.
Hot tracks: "La-La Means I Love You," "Didn't I Blow Your Mind," "The Look of Love"
-- ELLIS WIDNER
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Style on 01/10/2017