These three harmonizing singers packing serious lyrical wit made their album debut in late 2022 and continued apace into the next year.
Nya Gazelle Brown,
Sabrina Cunningham, and
Piya Malik reimagined
SWV's new jack ballad "Weak" as a late-'60s Memphis soul date, stepped in the marina to more faithfully cover
Jim Spencer's obscure AOR truffle "Wrap Myself in Your Love," and released their third proper single before rolling out the first results of sessions they cut live with previous collaborators
Orgone. The flexible, R&B-rooted band that backed the women on their debut 7" are copacetic support on second album
Silver. A lavish exhibit of the trio's talents,
Silver is over twice the length of the charmingly scruffy
Prism, allowing more space for them to stretch out as vocalists and further prove that songs about societal issues like bodily autonomy and gun control can thrill as much as those about seduction and affection. It's also truer to their self-applied "discodelic" descriptor. "C'est Si Bon," the polylingual prime example, shouts out
Chic, makes sonic links with
the S.O.S. Band and
Five Special, and has joie de vivre to spare like
Eartha Kitt's song of the same title, impelling listeners to "Tell them what you want" with a message that "We will be heard." (Its indestructible groove brilliantly regenerates after an operatic breakdown.) A close second to that is the brisk "Reeling," a call to "Kick the door down, smash the ceiling" over a driving bassline. The rhythm section shows a spiraling lightness of touch on "Astral Plane," the song's skyward swirling dancefloor action generated just as much by the singers' impeccably layered high notes. There's equal power in the slower and funkier material. "Entry Level" could go off on a
Head Hunters-era
Herbie Hancock tangent if it didn't end so abruptly with the disposal of a sexist boss. "Questions," broiling funk, urges to challenge oppressive forces. It's appropriate that the group's tribute to feminist art-punk activists the Guerilla Girls -- the keyboard-driven "Forget Me Not," their initial single -- reappears here, integral as side three's first song rather than a tacked-on bonus. ~ Andy Kellman
