Today has been a good day.
It started with finding a fully working 40" Samsung TV. Nice.
Then I got my hair cut. Nice.
Then when I got home, I logged on to Spotify and FINALLY the new Alborosie album Freedom & Fyah was sitting there waiting for my ears.
Having heard the single 'Fly' a couple of days ago and being pretty disappointed with it because of the horrendous overuse of autotune on it, I was actually dreading hearing the new album.
I'm going to talk a bit more about the autotune thing in a minute, but for now I'll let you know what I think about the album as a whole. It's been three years since Alborosie's last album 'Sound the System', which was a corker. Just about every track on the album is great.
Two years before that album came '2 Times Revolution' which was also really good and had a hefty amount of cracking reggae tunes on it, and was a welcomed follow up to 2009's 'Escape from Babylon' which was the first taste I had of Alborosie, and he immediately became one of my favourite contemporary reggae artists, and he is by far the most authentic white reggae artist that I listen to.
Read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alborosie I can't be bothered to tell you about him.
Over the last year or so there have been a few tracks released by Albo, and it kept me in suspense, really excited for the new album which I have listened to three times already today - so that tells you it's good already.
It does lack some of the catchiness that I've become used to from Alborosie, but nevertheless, the album is consistant and has been more or less worth the wait.
My favourite tracks are 'Rich' and 'Poser' which are probably the albums strongest, catchiest tracks.
My biggest criticism of the album, and not just Alborosie's - I'm talking about a lot of current reggae artists here too - there's just way too much autotune used throughout the album. When used sparingly, and well, autotune has its uses and place within music (never thought I'd hear myself say that!) but seriously, it's to the point of overkill here, and that made me a bit sad.
Alborosie can sing, so why not just sing the parts instead of singing them and then murdering them with the autotune? For me, it's honestly enough to shorten my listening span of this album, and although he's used it on pretty much all of his albums to a degree, this one just takes it too far.
The man can sing, and has a great voice, but honestly, if you can't sing a certain melody well, get that person that's featuring on your song to do it!
Anyway, I'll shut up about it now, but reggae artists - please please please put the autotune to rest and leave that to Ke$ha and the other artists who need it in the mainstream charts.
As with all of Alborosie's previous albums, this one is really well produced and mixed - Albo has an incredible knowledge of reggae production and there are some amazing videos on YouTube of him in his studio mixing some tunes and it's hypnotising to watch him do. His dub albums are also great - check out 'Dub of Thrones' your ears will thank me if you like a bit of dub reggae!
The only thing I felt this album was truly missing was the little bit of rocksteady/ska that he usually manages to squeeze in on at least one track, the song 'Goodbye' featuring Nina Zilli on his last album is an ear worm for sure.
All in all, my ears were most pleased with 'Freedom & Fyah' but as with all of the albums I've been waiting for that have come out this year, I just hope the wait for another one isn't too long.
I'm giving this album 5 out of 7, it might've got a 6 if it wasn't for the autotune overkill.
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