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CD Review
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The Week, CD Review >>
LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO
Raise Your Spirit Higher
(Heads Up)
3 Stars
The 10-year anniversary of the end of apartheid is celebrated gloriously here, said Terry Lawson in the Detroit Free Press. It’s been seven years since this South African vocal group out an album of original songs. This one makes “the harmonic connection between Zulu chanting and American gospel music more apparent – and uplifting – than ever before.” Band leader Joseph Shabalala is a devout Christian, and the songs’ cautionary tales warn against racism and drunken driving alike, said Daniel Durchholz in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It’s slightly ironic, then that the group has reached the ears of most Americans through its background music for candy and cola commercials and for singer Paul Simon. Far superior to Life Savers jingles, the a cappella music here is uniformly beautiful. Shabalala’s wife was killed in 2002, in a still unsolved murder, and “the shadow of tragedy falls over all the songs,” said Geoffrey Himes in The Washington Post. Subdued relative to the nearly ecstatic choral singing of their previous work, the songs here emphasize the effort to stay optimistic. Bass notes gain slightly more prominence, and consolation takes its place alongside celebration. 03/05/04
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