Avowing their DJ-minded methodology,
Adam Bainbridge
starts the third
Kindness
LP with an excerpt from
Underground Resistance
's homiletic "Transition": "There will be people who will say, 'You don't mix this with that,' and you will say, 'Watch me.'"
Bainbridge
uses the guidance of
UR
's
Cornelius Harris
to indicate that they are back on their grind, fortified by the intermediary work on recordings by
Solange
and
affiliates
Blood Orange
Robyn
. The words indeed seem to have guided most aspects of
Something Like a War
. Assembled from tricontinental sessions in over 20 private and commercial studios, its polyglot art-pop integrates slick funk and Afro-beat, house and new jack swing, and dub and garage, inclusive of other flavors. Its cast is typically
in makeup but
Quincy Jones
-like in scale. There are nearly 20 voices, well-utilized string and horn sections, and enough instrumentalists to form a few bands with standard lineups. Producer and principal writer
programs the drums, plays some of the instruments, arranges, and applies guileful
Todd Rundgren
Playa
samples. After a unifying, spirit-lifting house warm-up that almost sounds live enough to have been recorded at a small loft party,
gets down to private business. Vulnerability, patience, action, and uninhibited expression are all upheld as imperatives for intimacy.
Seinabo Sey
, propelled by a springy
Rashaan Carter
bassline, instructs with sweetness to "Give it up, don't be afraid to fall," a sentiment reinforced with the heady next track through
's consoling baritone, accentuated in the background with
and falsetto house legend
Byron Stingily
. They lead the way and build up to powerhouse
Jazmine Sullivan
, who on the pulsing and swirling "Hard to Believe" is at her most urgent and commanding since "Don't Make Me Wait." When love falls apart -- the last five songs, all convalescent in some form, sift through the wreckage -- openness is advanced as no less necessary. The quality slips only on a ballad that approximates a late-'80s demo by
Smith & Mighty
or
Massive Attack
, lifting again with another
showcase (the storming "Cry Everything") and an emotionally lacerated
Cosima
ballad pitched somewhere between
Maze
's "Joy and Pain" and
This Mortal Coil
("No New Lies"). "Something Like a War" in no manner references the like-titled documentary about the sterilization of women in India, but rapper
Bahamadia
-- along with
Sullivan
, one of only two vocalists to break from the album's tenderness -- swings at another form of oppression. She lands a direct hit just before
,
, and
Nadia Nair
exchange verses on a trembling finale urging against self-concealment. ~ Andy Kellman