B. SLADE - My September Reissue
by Michael Mishaw
Where do I start? This album is like a rich, nourishing, delicious meal: complex with bold flavors and subtleties, exquisitely prepared, to be taken in several courses. After the first full listen, I had to push away to digest it, even though I didn't want to stop "eating".
I can't pick a favorite--whichever song I am listening to at the time is my favorite. So I'll start with "Transitional Rug", since I just finished hearing it. The chorus chant, with its oblique two-part harmony and steady vibrato, is mysterious and hypnotic, yet anchored in terra and humor by pet dog Chance's barking on the backbeat. The phrase "that's what we kept sayin' when we was up in the club", recalling an intimate meeting of the minds between lovers, has turned into a lament of longing and regret, whereas it had once been an expression of joy and delight in "Diana Prince" (Stunt B%$@h, 2013).
Every album should have one scary song. Not Halloween scary, but human-relationship-emotion scary, and this one, "Hatfield McCoy", is a waking nightmare. The title alone lets us know we're in for a war. There's angry distorted guitars, up-in-the-ozone pitched vocalizing, shouting, screaming, and cursing. In this moment Mr. Slade is pissed, being forced to battle double standards: his lover's faulty accusations, followed up with the lover's restrictions on his anger, on his ability to express that anger, and on his defenses and counter-accusations. "When you switch the rules, I can't stand that shit.... when you judge my moods, I can't stand that shit.... but you can say or do whatever you want." The war escalates beyond fever pitch, obliterating any recollection of how or why it started.
"Yen and Sorrow" is the new "Add Me Up" (A Brilliant Catastrophe-alpha, 2010) with its sedate, near-resigned, "what is the reason I'm here" vocal approach. Everything he once held high and thought was true, now seems lost or changing through the days following his desperate survival mode in the heartbreaking "Room 622". How to get back to feeling sure of what one knows? How to eat and keep a roof overhead? How to go on living? "Yen" gives me Marvin Gaye--life questioning Marvin with his internal battles of sacred/profane, survival/existentialism.
The title song expands the original play on words of 2013's My September Issue: issue also meaning an album release, and re-issue also being a re-visiting and clarification of an emotional issue. This song takes me back to some of the older great artists like Earth Wind & Fire and Kate Bush, who would balance the heartbreak with hope in their album closer: hopeful yet not naive, realistic yet not cynical. Musically it could easily be someone's TV or movie theme. I mean this is the best way. Just check the syncopated vocal line "this is my Sept...September re-is-sue..." punctuated by a glottal, percussive "Ha!" every few beats, especially when it strips down to a cappella. You'll start the song over right away.
B. Slade's art extends even to his release date of September 19. For me, this album is made especially for fall. It's about loss, and processing it: loss of love, loss of summer to autumn--deaths of a sort. Mr. Slade takes us around and back through the five grieving stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. You can feel the fall season in this music. I hear the reds, golds, oranges and rusts--I hear the different angle of the sun. The summer-to-fall season change is usually a challenge for me, and "My September Reissue" is a welcome, new transitional tool. And hopefully, like summer, the love also returns... maybe in three years... or five years...
I agree with another reviewer that art presents life and life presents art on this record. Song after song after song, Mr. Slade turns the stone over, revealing yet another angle, yet another side to the story. He has outdone himself. This is great, meaty, textbook material for those wishing to do serious vocal, songwriting, arranging, or production study.
I love this record. The only thing missing is a link to the lyrics so we can read along. Seven stars.*******
Michael Mishaw
