Chris Dave is actually a drummer \u2013 a real good one, in fact. So good that Rolling Stone<\/i> named him as one of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, and he’s sat behind the kit for artists like Adele, Bieber, and Dolly, though his regular gig is in D’Angelo’s band. <\/p>\n
On this first album, Dave brings in many, many guests, including DJ Jazzy Jeff, James Poyser (The Roots), and Stokley Williams (Mint Condition), among many others. And with so much talent on hand, it’s no surprise that each song here explores a variety of sounds and styles, often all within each track. <\/p>\n
The album starts with the spacey \u201cRock Crying,\u201d where it seems like three tunes are playing at once: an R&B, a hip-hip, and a soulful rock one. \u201cUniversal Language\u201d follows with a similar approach, though it is more heavily rooted in soulful hip-hop, before the percussion heavy and upbeat sounds of \u201cDat Feelin’,\u201d which is primarily instrumental and possesses more of a jam band quality. \u201cBlack Hole\u201d then gets ever busier with horns and plenty of funky spirit.<\/p>\n
The middle of the disc offers us a bit of a break from the hectic earlier tunes. \u201cSpread Her Wings\u201d brings the tempos back to a lush, romantic atmosphere with stunning female vocals, and Mint Condition’s Stokley Williams brings us some of the best vocal work on the ultra-soulful \u201cCosmic Intercourse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Near the end, \u201cJob Well Done\u201d is the last song with vocals; this spazzy dance track abruptly moves from video game noises into a sophisticated, warm R&B stunner with seductive vocals from Anna Wise. The last two tracks are where things change dramatically: \u201cLady Jane\u201d is a key-friendly mix of experimental psych-rock sans vocals, and \u201cTrippy Tipsy\u201d closes the album out with a quick and blurry mix of horns and atmosphere in an instrumental jazz fusion.<\/p>\n
Not so surprisingly, there are 50+ voices on this album on the first 13 tunes alone. Combine that with a flurry of horns, percussion, and the complicated nature of the songwriting, and things can get a bit heavy to digest. Fortunately, the end of the album helps balance things out with some less congested\u00a0 efforts, which were certainly the highlights for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":33614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10258],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-45435","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chris-dave-and-the-drumhedz","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45435"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}