Sean Trane
Last GSH album I investigated and while definitely not his weaker one, the general Scott-Heron propos had worn thin for quite a while, so I never pushed further down the Gil Avenue, with the prime non-incentive being the album’s title and date of fabrication. Need I explain more? Well just to get my warning published, it looks like I will have indeed expand on that idea, in order to reach the 100 words limit.
Indeed, right from the opening Shut’em down until the closing Late Last Night, we’re dealing with a horn-laden late-70’s and early 80’s funk that you’d get from EW&F or K&tG, sometimes close the Jackson’s Victory album funk. Good stuff if you wanna hit the dance-floors of the discotheque in those days and “score a chick”, but hardly anything a patient man would want to spin in the privacy of his living room. Some tracks have some soul flavourings added, but overall, it won’t change the outcome of the album’s general boring fate. Don’t get me wrong, tracks like Willing, the enthralling Shah Mot or the strange intro of the title track do have merits, but overall these isolated moments are drowned in an ocean of fillers and average funkiness. Better steer clear of this one, even though it’s not as bad as I make it out to be, and much worse albums will come in this brand-new decade.