01.17.2008
Spins: Kirk Franklin, Drive-by Truckers, Kavish
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Kirk Franklin
The Fight of My Life
Label: For Yo Soul/Zomba Gospel
If you like: Deitrick Haddon, Israel & New Breed
Song to download: “Help Me Believe”
2 stars (out of four)
Kirk Franklin emerged in the 1990s doing the unthinkable — melding pop with gospel, adding a tad of the secular to the sacred, all without diluting his Christian message.
Over the past 10 years, he has become one of the most successful gospel artists in history, reaching millions of people with his mix of funk, R&B, hip-hop and traditional gospel. His latest album, The Fight of My Life, is stamped with his unbeaten formula, layering as it does messages of empowerment and faith over funky grooves.
“Declaration (This Is It)” is a prime example as Franklin remixes “This Is It,” Kenny Loggins’ classic 1979 hit into Rocky-like theme music, the song filled to the brim with the pulsating beat and rousing vocals from the group of singers he has assembled.
Franklin’s appeal is more than his use of pop melodies to spread a gospel message. It also lies in his willingness to keep it real, to let people know that being Christian isn’t about perfection — it’s about continually striving to put God first.
That message is evident on the poignant “Help Me Believe,” a crescendo that deals honestly with how doubt can creep into one’s faith.
And he does falter, more so on this album than on previous ones, as his fresh approach fades into numbing predictability. Experiments such as the gimmicky rapping on “I Like Me” fall flat, and arrangements on several songs are tedious.
Yet, when Franklin gets it right — and he does most of the time — faith is restored.
Drive-By Truckers
Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
Label: New West Records
If you like: Lucero, Steve Earle, Tom T. Hall
Song to download: “That Man I Shot”
3 ½ stars
The Drive-By Truckers do not make bad albums. The band makes different albums — always changing and growing, as best exemplified by the band’s new Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.
This album encompasses old-school, pedal-steel country; hard-honed R&B; and the expected professionally ramshackle rock. The reason for the dynamic shift — the loss of singer, songwriter and guitarist Jason Isbell, whose contributions had been key to the band for the past five years.
Filling the void is the rise of bassist Shonna Tucker as a fine singer and songwriter, combined with the best batch songs in years from stalwarts Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, who write tales of rural Southern life filled with hardscrabble men facing life’s cruel paradoxes. The best songs trace the stories of people at moral crossroads — including two great songs about the war in Iraq.
It’s an exciting journey, a dynamic disc of continuous challenge filled with literary wisdom and memorable couplets gained only through the pain and peculiarities of experience.
Kavish
Overcoming Gravity
Label: None (http://www.myspace.com/kavish13)
If you like: Pop delivered with a hard rabbit punch
Song to download: “The Light”
3 stars
The Winston-Salem music scene has long largely depended on the ingenuity of local bands to individualize well-worn power-pop blueprints. A successful example is Overcoming Gravity, a fascinating, multilayered new album by Kavish, led by Ken and Amy Mohan (drummer Shannon Kerr rounds out the trio). These veteran musicians reflect years of absorbing what works — and doesn’t work — within legions of bands seeking to be the next Big Star. Thus nothing jangles in the band’s vision. A chipper pop song such as “Dreamland” adopts a skewed psychedelic mood (think The Move in Pepperland) in which melody is enhanced by brilliant (real) string arrangements, something that recurs throughout the disc.
The band also understands that the work of Nirvana was punk built on a power-pop foundation, which enables Kavish to rock with frenzied punkish abandon; the feedback guitar playing of Amy Mohan is a marvel. Overcoming Gravity moves in many directions, but finds a gratifying unity through smart arrangements and interesting songs played with and from the heart.
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Word on the streets
Not sure who reviewed the cd by Kavish? Did you listen to the CD? This is one of the worst CD’s I have heard in years. Many people are so sick and tired of these old wanna-be’s trying to be Mitch Easter. It is not going to happen. Winston-Salem has so much better music and musicians than this crap. This is a horrible cd with juvenille songs and a horrible mix. If this is 3 stars, then we need help.
By kreek87 on 01.22.2008
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