Lady Blackbird - Slang Spirituals

Slang Spirituals is soul singer and producer Lady Blackbird's latest full-length album, following up the EP of the same name released earlier in 2024. A collaborative wall of sound, scaled in collaboration with producer and guitarist Chris Seefried - as well as her very own, devoted session musical retinue, consisting of Kenneth Crouch (Keys), Tamar Barzilay (drums) and Johnny Flaughers (bass) - this bright, yet equally, extimately melancholic record is a twin paean to two superficially opposed themes: soul-purgation and soul-complication. 'Let Not' and 'Purify' make up the former front face, heliolatrically facing up to the brighter sides of life with yellowed guitar fuzzes and boundless vocals, while B-siders 'Whatever His Name' and 'When The Game Is Played On You' prefer to explore the darker side of the moon, deploying various mellotrons, pump organs and cross-sticks to acoustically muse on the inverse pains that are betrayal, longing, and graft.