In the wake of all the hype surrounding Sam Smith snatching up a horde of Grammy gold, it was obvious that the emergence of one Leon Bridges would go unnoticed.
Like Smith, fellow Brits Adele and George Ezra, and the homegrown Alabama Shakes, Bridges ( who hails from Fort Worth, Texas ) brings something new and refreshing to current music by revisiting the past. With a voice that has an uncanny resemblance to the late Sam Cooke's, Bridges has managed to bring heartfelt, unadorned, Southern soul right back to ground zero with low-key finesse and style. In fact, his music is so nuanced and precise that it sounds almost alien.
Nobody makes pure popular music anymore that is designed to be listened to and appreciated for it's own worth. The very nerve of this guy is appalling: Leon Bridges traffics in sincere, un-gimmicky, un-flashy, relaxed soul, but after just one listen to any of his music it is clear why and how he has ignited a slow building breakthrough that is grabbing attention for all of the wrong reasons.
I say the "wrong reasons" because this attractive, young, subdued Black man is doing it with pure heart and intelligence while, in 2015, we have been fed a stream of hyped, larger-than-life product that makes it nearly impossible to experience anything as unflashy or "normal" as Ezra or Bridges. A big part of the allure of his debut, Coming Home, is the minute twang at the core of each song, and that characteristic makes them not only relaxing but engaging. Bridges and his band never reach or strain, instead caressing the human ear rather then grabbing it. The kicker is that the songs here are so well-written and personal, the only sane thing to do was let them do the talking.
"Lisa Sawyer," a song about Bridges' mother's baptism, is put across entirely by his vocals and features a touch of doo-wop and gospel that flavors the recording with a spiritual, homey taste. "Coming Home" has a slow, mellow groove that defies the quaintness of the lyric ( the "baby...I'm comin' home" sentiment of "The Letter" by Joe Cocker is a bit worn out in 2015, no? ), but the sincerity is so strong here that the song is incredibly intoxicating. Sure, you may have heard it all before, but the way Bridges sings "Coming Home," you wish your lover would sing it to you in the middle of the night over the phone when they are thousands of miles away. The corker is "Twistin' and Groovin,'" which has the kind of lilting hook and bop reminiscent of Marvin Gaye via Holland, Dozier and Holland from the mid-'60s.
If Bridges personifies nuance, alternative EDM band Passion Pit epitomizes bombast and with a vengeance. Front man Michael Angelakos' strategy for creating music seems to be to take slight, slim songs and upholster them with massive amounts of production razzmatazz. At his worst all those counter melodies, guitar squawks, beeps, whistles, and his over wrought brittle falsetto have the effect of making the listener feel like they are being beaten senseless by a pack of deranged elves. Which is the exact reason that the new Kindred is such a sweet and pleasant surprise.
Angelakos and his co-producers ( Alex Aldi, Chris Pine and Benny Blanco ) have channeled all that techno thunder and focused it to service the songs rather then the opposite. As a result, some of Kindred's most rewarding segments are pure pop fueled with an aching sincerity and optimism, and the CD has a warmth that Passion Pit has rarely approached. Hearing Kindred for the first time is like witnessing the moment when The Tin Man realized that he always had a heart.
The CD kicks off with a big booming blast of pure joy called "Lifted Up ( 1985 )," and the song is one huge, swirling, catchy, bliss out. "Where the Sky Hangs" is straight up pop, but the killer here is "All I Want," which is so elegant, serene, and heartfelt that it brushes perfection.
If Kindred implied that, Passion Pit and Angelakos had grasped the idea that subtlety is a virtue, and that notion got an industrial flush once they got onstage at Thalia Hall for the first of a sold-out two-night stand May 13. Even the nonstop booty-wiggling and saucy rap-pop chants of openers Holychild could not have prepared any sane person for what was about to follow.
Flanked by his sidemen, Angelakos stomped onstage and got ensnared in his own rapture from the moment he put the microphone to his lips. The tip-off for where the night was headed came in the second selection on the set list when Angelakos tore into "Lifted Up," and his band turned that sweey song into a monolithic epic of insane proportions. ( I am still amazed at how wide Angelakos can open his mouth to sing; for such a skinny, furry little guy, he packs a wallop. ) If the music was put across with the force of Krakatoa in full sexual eruption, the lighting ( Passion Pit brought with them what looked like a quarter of a million dollars in lights ) was designed to overwhelm, clobber and conquer. Truth be told, Passion Pit's audience clearly wanted to be overwhelmed, clobbered and overwhelmed and, as a result, this show felt far bigger than just another silly concert.
The hits tumbled out here and there ( "To Kingdom Come," "The Reeling," "Little Secrets," an encore of "Sleepyhead" ) but once Angelakos dug into a relatively subdued "Until We Can't" never the finish, he unintentionally exposed his motivation for making colossal pop music. As someone who was diagnosed as bi-polar ( he has successfully been in treatment since the age of seventeen ) he clearly wants the rest of us to experience his highs.
My assumption may sound like a cheap shot but it isn't. With him flouncing about while singing his heart out, Angelakos was so INTO IT that he looked like an enchanted, possessed, fairy who just wants to include us in his joy. And really ... who can argue with that?