Chocolate Genius Inc - Black Yankee Rock
By: Mark Runyon | Category: Album Reviews | 11/20/05 | 12:12 AM
 |  |  Grade: B+ | Genre: Rock/Jazz/Blues
Summary: Thompson has created a very compelling disk in Black Yankee Rock. The music housed within the covers spouts forth powerfully expressive emotion and a sound that can only be described as some tangled mess of rock eating jazz birthing soul.
So say you're surfing through the never ending slacks of disks at your favorite hip music store. Suddenly, you run across an album plastered with the controversial Confederate flag, painted in black, green, yellow and red. The album just happens to be curiously entitled Black Yankee Rock. Now what do you think you're getting yourself into when you slide this bad boy into the CD player? Marc Anthony Thompson, or Chocolate Genius Inc if you prefer, is the man responsible for this interesting assembly of improbable partners of image and words. The music housed within the covers is just as complex, spouting forth powerfully expressive emotion and a sound that can only be described as some tangled mess of rock eating jazz birthing soul. It doesn't apologize for being unconventional. It revels in it. |
Black Yankee Rock marks the third release by Chocolate Genius Inc. Craig Street (Norah Jones, Cassandra Wilson) takes on the production responsibilities here, lending his talents of delivering finely tuned melodies. He allows just enough grit to scuff the finely polished shine so the emotion might slip out through the side door. Thompson brings aboard several heavyweights to assist him including Marc Ribot, Roy Nathanson and comely siren Me'Shell NdegeOcello.
The collection starts in earnest with the modern rock enriched "The Beginning of Always." We are greeted to wheeling guitars, husky vocals and a carefully textured radio-worthy hook. All these elements support a compelling beat that slowly builds into a towering spiral of sound. This track is the purest take on Thompson's rock sensibilities. Once we leave its musical confines, the boundaries of genre grow much blurrier.
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Did you realize that if you extracted that patented gravely rasp from Tom Waits' voice you'd have a sound as smooth as silk? "Down So Low" is my proof. Thompson sounds like the ash of a severe break-up is just drifting down upon him. The sky is so dark with the soot of this pain, its inconceivable the light might ever shine again. Just when you think he's going to collapse on the floor from emotional exhaustion, the song chokes on the bitterness and anger, blasting guitars and ringing cymbals into this bleak existence. "Down So Low" is definitely one of Black Yankee Rock's most prized children.
This deep, thoughtful melancholy pervades the album with tempos slowed to the drip of syrup off a Waffle House plate. "It's Going Wrong" is framed in this dense quiet. It's a song depressed without being depressing. It breaks away from the intense shoe gazing to allow the elevation of voice and the occasional light of rich horns to spray warmth over the piece. "The Yes Eye" is another nice addition. It's the album's shortest member clocking in at a shade over two minutes, but it accomplishes a lot in its brief look. It's a relationship gone wrong when love wasn't enough and the feelings never found the words when it was important.
The disk isn't flawless, but that's the inevitable price you pay for innovation. "Rats Under Waterfalls" is a shade weird in its Jon Brion-eque plucking and lyrics mired in heavy abstraction. I mean "rats under waterfalls/quiet as cheese melting/crumbs on my morning side." Uh yeah. Relegate that puppy to a b-side on the first single, my man. Those die-hard fans collecting the singles like baseball cards will soak up anything. This similar quirk shows up on the lounge laced "Chasing Strange" which doesn't have that necessary distinction to really grab hold of the listener.
Thompson has created a very compelling disk in Black Yankee Rock. It fluctuates between the R&B juiced sway of "Amazona" to the Jackson Browne small town rock fueled "For Everyone." The only consistency is its distaste for fitting a definition that us reviewers love to try to corral artists into. Thompson's ability to bring a cultured voice to rock reminds me of one of my favorite up-and-coming artists, David Ryan Harris. Where Thompson surpasses him is being able to capture those rich genre-bending ways in the studio. Thompson has great things ahead if he can continue to capitalize on this unconventional approach and keep his unique voice.
Release Date: October 11, 2005
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