Track Reviews // Charles Bradley - Lucifer


2nd Single (Innit Recordings, 30th May 2019)

Charles Bradley, screaming eagle of soul, knew how to kick off a fucking jam. The shriek that rips into Lucifer rivals the hopeless plea way back on Why Is It So Hard? from Bradley’s Daptone debut No Time For Dreaming. From start to finish he worked genius grating his remarkable life against his vocal chords and wrestling the resulting roar with his soul.

This latest posthumous single bangs with the dayglo rave at Stonehenge elation produced before by pairings like Groove Armada and Richie Havens, Nina Simone resounding in myriad Sinnerman versions. It is, along with Lonely As You Are, the last material the erstwhile James Brown impersonator ever gifted us. Recorded during the last stages of Bradley’s fight with cancer they are unbelievably yet understandably performances of the utmost power and emotion.

The lyrics praising Obama are starkly political but the sentiment that beats like a heart in the abstracted images – Bradley’s echoing desire to fling his arms around the world. That uncanny Otis Redding phrasing clamps down on the gospel rebel yell before it tailspins and the rough-hewn piano and strings over breakbeats turn it into a hook worthy of Screamadelica or Play.

This is among the last unheard music we’ll be blessed with from Charles Bradley but, as with everything he produced, it’s a testament to the man himself and to the man as every man. It’s only with the burning heat of friction that Bradley lit such a fierce flame so late in life, wind resistance against the gales of life. Like a carpenter, his voice and his life endured every callous and cut, to smooth everyone else’s rough edges. RIP

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