Review: BLK ODYSSY, DIAMONDS & FREAKS

Whereas 2021 breakout BLK VINTAGE felt like the opening night party of a revolution, BLK ODYSSY now welcomes us to an "erotic novel of love and lust." True to premise, the eclectic and upbeat four-chapter concept album is, at times, pantingly seductive, though it also often resembles disaffected lovers abstracting their relationship from opposite sides of a wall. At face value, such he-said-she-said interplay could thrive or flop, but DIAMONDS & FREAKS finds thematic potency in lyrics that feel voyeuristically honest – and its best moments come when the music sounds like a conversation.

That's a signature move for BLK ODYSSY, who understands how to make two vocalists sound like six. Nowhere is this more evident than within the biblical attraction of "Adam & Eve," in which project visionary Juwan Elcock employs an array of colorful deliveries to represent multiple viewpoints on the budding romance. Contrasting with the patient neo-soul singing on BLK VINTAGE, the bandleader sucks listeners in with intricately patterned raps while his helium-tank falsetto still factors heavily. Back-and-forth with a variety of guest vocalists includes Kanye/Beyoncé co-writer Kirby on impossible romance "You Gotta Man" and ingenious lyricist Rapsody, whose sensual title track verse ("Legs bent like a Buddha") sells with theatrical delivery. Still, Austin's Eimaral Sol continues to be the project's secret sauce with her uncanny ability to sound like a pitch-shifted sample on a live mic or pull focus with an authoritative presence à la Erykah Badu.

Though select elements may indicate a Seventies stylistic nod – like a cassette click foley intro or hosting Bootsy Collins as both a narrator and guest musician (his immaculately spongy bass anchors standout "Honeysuckle Neckbone") – DIAMONDS & FREAKS resounds as a distinctly forward-thinking production. Its mélange of funk, hip-hop, soul, and occasionally jazz – sweetened with watery electric bass, smooth horns/woodwinds, and Alejandro Rios' vibrant guitar flourishes – transmits with such a cutting edge that when tastemaking producer the Alchemist takes over controls on "Judas & the Holy Mother of Stank," it doesn't feel like an outlier. If you've ever dreamed of hearing Kendrick Lamar, Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo, OutKast, and Parliament doing a treatise on desire, this is as close as it comes.