Surreal depth of D’Angelo album is sure to please fans

More than 14 years after the lauded soul singer D’Angelo released his classic album “Voodoo,” the elusive artist has dropped his follow-up.

Called “Black Messiah,” the album was released without advance notice earlier this month long after the artist started teasing it in 2012. Comprising a dozen tracks, “Black Messiah” was crafted by D’Angelo and his band, the Vanguard, and features collaborations with musicians including Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, Roots drummer Questlove (best known as bandleader for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”) and others. Writing in the album’s liner notes, D’Angelo acknowledges that the title “is a hell of a name for an album” before emphasizing that he’s not claiming to be a messiah himself. Rather, “We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah.”

It’s a political album, continues D’Angelo, “about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen.” Though not every song has a charged message, the artist writes that the title “creates a landscape where these songs can live to the fullest.”

How does it sound? On first listen, a strange, surreal record that hits on mid-’70s Parliament and Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” the tripped-out oeuvre of Betty Davis and a dose of “Band of Gypsys”-era Jimi Hendrix. At times it chugs like slowed-down Bad Brains, coupling distorted guitar with a heavy rhythm section. Loose hand claps abound, adding a hefty dose of human soul.

Best of all is the sense that D’Angelo released the album fans were hoping for: a dynamic, soulful and smart album, one that not only grooves but has weight to it.