The 2kDozen 500: #315 - Brother Ali, "The Bite Marked Heart"

I've read a bit about "Mourning In America And Dreaming In Color", but while I found I couldn't find it I found this. The newer album is presumably of a more political bent; this one is romance for the pants. Which cuts a little against the grain perhaps, as he's not handsome with his conventionals - an overweight, round-headed albino guy with a beard. A long D&D basement beard.

It's quite straight-laced though. No paranoid logorrhoea, no imaginative leaps to or from any great heights. The production is lush and dripping with soul arrangements, but there are no real surprises. Ali has some flow, but I'm more of a fan of the ODB school of crazy chat, arrhythmic in parts because brain fits don't make smooth patterns. There is nothing jagged here, but it is kind of sweet. Which I guess is the idea.

"Haunted House" seems to be about failing relationships, but there aren't any insightful metaphors. Just a dead female voice singing "Broken/Love foundations". Stuff about dawns and eyes and demons. Too straight, too strait.

His voice is smooth and full of self-belief but this is maybe not the best vehicle, it's no fun, "echoing a language from a long time ago".

Rating: Albino Dungeon Master out of R-Kelly's Closet