3 stars (out of four)
Perhaps the only comeback more anticipated than an artist who hasn't released a new album in nearly 15 years is, uh, the return of an even higher power.
So for D'Angelo, the R&B star whose sophomore album, 2000's "Voodoo," is a near-undisputed classic, to at last deliver his follow-up with the title "Black Messiah" is huge. (To be fair, he could have called the album "Who Cares?" and it still would be a big deal.) Yet the now-40-year-old singer's third album, released under the name D'Angelo and the Vanguard, is neither religious experience nor Kanye-esque self-endorsement. It's a call to action that recognizes how often opportunities end before we're ready-if we even have them at all.
"I just wanna go back, baby/back to the way it was," he sings on "Back to the Future (Part I)," the album's most direct request to recapture an earlier, easier time. But D doesn't flatly endorse the past as preferable: "So if you're wondering about the shape I'm in," he continues on that track, "I hope it ain't my abdomen that you're referring to." Though years removed from his undesired sex-symbol status, the guy certainly still has the power make listeners feel romantic. The intimate "Really Love" will have many, many couples declaring it their song as a Spanish guitar opening gives way to harp and strings amid a laid-back snap. Later, "Betray My Heart" is tight, sweet sincerity, flirting with becoming merely nice until a late horn breakdown brings it somewhere more special. Too bad D (whose 2000 performance at the Chicago Theatre remains the best concert I've ever attended) sounds so unconcerned with why a lover leaves in opener "That Ain't Easy" and creepily compares his lady to a newborn in the loose, funky "Sugah Daddy."
Yet love is only a central theme here as it relates to its elusiveness in a complicated world. The restless, undeniable thump of "1000 Deaths" and jangly, mellow groove of the lyrically devastating "Charade" ("All we wanted was a chance to talk/'Stead we only got outlined in chalk/Feet have bled a million miles we've walked/Revealing at the end of the day/the charade") deliver a back-to-back wallop of soulful social disappointment and motivation. "Black Messiah" doesn't offer that complexity and adventurousness throughout-"The Door" is a little too simple, and closer "Another Life" rides a warm-but-ordinary vamp.
But D'Angelo's return isn't a disappointment just because it's not the greatest album ever/on par with "Brown Sugar" and "Voodoo." His voice still sounds incredible. For a long time there was a very good chance that he'd never release anything else again. And with the varied stylistic approaches on "Black Messiah," it's fitting that the record generates both comfort and unease.
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mpais@tribune.com
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