Far from the bedroom beginnings of her debut album as tUnE-yArDs, Merrill Garbus took the sometimes stumbling step into the studio to record her follow-up whokill. And instead of allowing any of the intimacy of that debut to drain away, the new production sheen, such as it is, has only fortified the strength and impact of these songs. And as affected as these songs could have been, Garbus manages to wring real emotion and immediacy from these tracks and lets the listener be privy, at least for forty minutes or so, to her own guarded narrative. Her passion and dedication to these songs is never in question; she always feels as though she lives and breathes these tracks and you can hear the love and affection she feels toward them. But these tracks are also full of the anger and frustration borne of her own sense of helplessness and she takes that frustration and pointedly attacks what she sees as the injustices and violence inherent in our lives.
For Garbus, whokill is an examination of what she sees as the emotional and physical deficits and downright dangers that we deal with every day. Much has been made of the distraction of her vocal delivery--the closet accurate point of reference being Nina Simone--but in the context of these songs, that emotional, vocal bravado brings an additional level of spiritual depth to the album. And though not sacred in creed, this album overflows with the fervor and religious fury of Garbus as brimstone-and-hellfire spitting preacher. You may not like what she says but you damn well won't ignore her either. On songs like "Gangsta" with its bristling violent anixety punctuated by sudden horn blasts and "My Country" where Garbus has a hard time reconciling her own privileged life with the lives of those that she champions, the fire and momentum that she allows to collect surges forth and surrounds the listener and you can't help but be pulled along in her wake. If BiRd-BrAiNs was her somewhat naive attempt at setting forth her own personal ethic, then whokill is the culmination of that work and stands as a momument to the resolve which bursts forth from Garbus and that feels as though it will consume her and, if she's successful, the wrongs which she sees so clearly and feels so strongly about.
Tracklisting:
01. My Country
02. Es-So
03. Gangsta
04. Powa
05. Riotriot
06. Bizness (listen to the mp3 below)
07. Doorstep
08. You Yes You
09. Wolly Wolly Gong
10. Killa
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