Review: D'Angelo- Black Messiah

After almost fifteen years, D'Angelo has returned with a killer new album. D'Angelo is an American artist known for popularizing the neo-soul movement in the mid '90s to early 2000s, with critical successes of albums like Brown Sugar and Voodoo under his belt. He has also become known for his reclusive nature, and there were countless delays, legal troubles and mental breakdowns on the way to this album. The fame D'Angelo experienced after Voodoo was released, as well as the video for 'Untitled (How Does It Feel?)' (you know the one), caused him to retreat for the spotlight for a while, and I kind of wondered whether I'd ever hear anything from him again. I'm glad D'Angelo was able to make a recovery and put out another instant classic.

Listening to the album, it's hard to believe that D'Angelo was ever out of the game, since he sounds just as fresh as when he left. This album somehow more than lives up to the fifteen years of hype, which you'd think would be all but impossible. However, he came back with a set of groove heavy, well constructed, soul gems that reinforce how stagnant current R&B is. The grooves here are ridiculously easy to get lost in, the sounds you hear on the record are extremely varied, unlike most R&B production, and the subject matter is also varied as well (not all R&B has to be about sex, guys. There are other things to write about.) In short, it's a D'Angelo album, which is a seal of quality among soul albums.

D'Angelo learned to play guitar between albums, which I have to say is pretty awesome if all the guitar on this album is him. The instrumentation here is pretty plentiful here (is that a sitar on 'The Charade'?) and there is definitely a groove feel, but definitely some experimental and psychedelic sounds as well. ?uestlove supplies drums on the album, so that's awesome as well.
And I can not praise D'Angelo's vocal performances enough. He sounds amazing here, and his delivery is almost as varied as the rest of the sounds of the album.

All in all, this is definitely the best, most ambitious and experimental soul record I've hear in a while, and put a lot of modern acts to shame. For a soul or D'Angelo fan, this is a must listen. For anyone else, I'd still recommend it, since it shows there's still some creativity even in a genre a stagnant as R&B. Somehow this was worth the wait, but I hope I don't have to wait as long to hear from him again. Now, I'm off to re-edit my year end top ten albums, because this project threw that waaaaaay off.

Out of a total of five stars, I give this:

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