Saying that I've been anticipating local funk ensemble Charles Walker and The Dynamites' sophomore album Burn It Down is an understatement on par with "radio programmers enjoy the Black Eyed Peas" or "Glenn Beck has some issues to work out." There are albums you look forward to, and then there are albums you look forward to—the sort that inspire puddles of drool and wistful gazes at the mere mention of their imminent release. Burn It Down fell firmly in the latter category, and let me tell ya, folks, it lives up to every ounce of hype my overactive imagination has cranked out over the last six months. And that hype knob was turned way past 11.
Burn it Down is not the one-two wham-bam, thank you ma'am sucker punch of hard funk that made their debut Kaboom so compelling—brothers and sisters it is so much more than that! The hooks are tighter, the arrangements looser and the break beats bouncier, creating an album that can satisfy everyone from the cat who can recite matrix numbers from obscure Cincinnati funk singles to the casual listener just looking for a good groove. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if the intertwining vocals of Mr. Walker and his chorus of lady accomplices on "If I Had Known" don't melt your heart, you probably eat puppy brains on toast for breakfast. "Known" and the equally stellar "I Got Love (For You)" are the kind of classic soul ballads that lead to tears of joy, impromptu slow dancing and unexpected pregnancies. You know the type—well, er, at least your parents know the type, if ya catch my drift.
But beyond all the baby making and booty shaking lies one of the most unapolegtically political albums to come out of Nashville this year. Indulging in neither left-wing sloganeering nor right-wing fearmongering that typifies politicized music, Burn It Down invokes (pardon the pun) fiery imagery in the pursuit of a radical centrism built around the idea that we all have problems, we all have fears and screaming into the void ain't gonna solve a damn thing. Like the song says, "Somebody's got it better, somebody's got it worse," and whether you're the person riding in the limo or the person riding in the hearse, your humanity is more important than party affiliations or philosophical differences. A simple sentiment, sure, but in the midst of this summer's divisive rhetoric—and delivered via Charles Walker's sagely pipes—it's especially potent.
If Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" was the theme song for the civil rights movement, I would like to nominate "(It's a) Sunny Day" for the leitmotif of the civil discourse movement. A friendly reminder that for all the talk of end times and apocalypse from both sides of the aisle, the sun still shines and we can all warm ourselves in its glow—and we can all boogie down to the bad-ass beat on the bridge, if we just relax and recognize the humanity of fellow man. It's a novel concept that could easily drift into hippy-dippy territory, but Walker delivers it with the authority of a man who's seen all of the good and the bad, from segregation to the election of our first black president. Never preachy but always powerful, Walker and the Dynamites make a strong case for the better angels of our nature—and it's funky as hell to boot.
In the three years since they exploded onto the scene, The Dynamites have continually made the case that the funk-soul revival is more than just a fad for the retro-fetishists among us and that the music is not a stagnant museum piece, but a living breathing thing. The Dynamites' relevance hinges not on meticulous re-creations of long lost recording techinques and outmoded sentiments, but on the interaction of the modern and traditional, the common ground between where we, as a culture, have been and where we are going. Songs like "Can't Have Enough" may owe allegiance to Jimmy Smith's soulful organ and Herbie Mann's funky flute explorations of the late '60s, but its critique of contemporary consumer culture and the trickle-down effects of greed and corruption are undeniably 2009.
In a city where escapism is the primary export and conspicuous consumption is the prescribed route to fame and fortune, it's a relief to have at least one band willing to forgo the crass exploitation of our baser instincts in favor of a conversation about the things that ail us all. And that the discussion is all over some boogie-down breaks and hella hot horn riffs? Well, that's just dynamite.
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