gifted lyrics surreal and the soul providers

In a previous incarnation, Arizona iconoclast Chris Pomerenke was one-half of the dada-pop duo Lush Budget Presents the Les Payne Product, wearing a white, nuclear-reactor jumpsuit and playing drums with one hand while he stabbed at a tiny keyboard with the other. Nothing epitomizes the unfortunate and too-often-craven tone so perfectly as her breakbeat-fueled, thuggin’ anthem, “Ghetto Love,” which opens with a sample of “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” and heads downhill at light speed from there. Opening with a martial drumbeat reminiscent of U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” a slinky bass and piano line appear, heading immediately upstage, reserving the spotlight for Gray’s mesmerizing, multi-tracked vocal theatrics.Īlbum openers “Finally Made Me Happy” and “Shoo Be Doo” are just the kind of jazzy, paint-by-numbers R&B tracks that Gray’s magnetic presence is designed to uplift, but mostly her oddball flavor is smothered in string-laden arrangements so overwrought they’d make Burt Bacharach blush. However, a track such as “Okay” showcases the promise of Gray’s overwhelming charisma. (It doesn’t help that her lyrical skills distantly trail the originality of her voice.) There’s no change in that here. Gray’s talent is such that you could seemingly wind her up and set her loose, yet perpetually she’s afflicted with sub-par material. Yet even her boundless idiosyncrasies are not enough to save the over-produced, half-baked banality that afflicts the balance of this album. Macy Gray is gifted with the ability to climb inside a conventional R&B track and breathe life into the whole moribund enterprise.

Gifted lyrics surreal and the soul providers