Church Is Burning Down
There are basically four components to this song to be addressed. The first I’ll touch on is the lyrical message. The song is in reference to a recent spate of predominately black churches being burnt down in the US. That message is important, and for that this is topical and well done. Next, we’ll look at the song structure. That’s not really as successful as there are few changes here and the piece is just sort of one straight-line jam. Looking to the music itself, it’s mostly rhythmic without a lot of melodic elements at play. To me that makes it a bit too stripped back. The vocal performance, though, really elevates this. I love the multiple layers of vocals. I’d say this song has a very modern sound, but is rooted in classic formats. It’s good, and timely, but not great. I’d just love a bit more meat on the bones in terms of the song structure and instrumental arrangement.
(Editor's Note - Music Street Journal is set up for the allocation of albums, not singles - particularly not one-song singles. So, in the instances, like this one, where we've covered single song releases, we've had to make some adaptations for formatting. In the case of this one, just imagine both track review and overall review reading as one set of copy. )
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