On “The Flood,” the opening track from 20-year-old Bronx musician Caleb Giles’ second solo album, There Will Be Rain, a voice sings about the weather through heavy digital distortion: “It’s gonna rain/You better get ready and bear this in mind.” Delivered as a statement of fact, the line is less a visionary prophecy than a child’s repetition of a familiar story handed down by an elder. In fact, “The Flood” is a cover of “It’s Gonna Rain Again,” an early-1970s song from the traditional gospel quartet the Sensational Nightingales. Giles, like the Nightingales before him, is seeking truth in the Book of Genesis. But there’s an implicit admission in this cover—sung by his Standing on the Corner bandmate Gio Escobar—that he may never find the meaning of the rain. The story of the flood raises impossible questions about humanity’s relationship with God that date back to Biblical times, and Giles revives that conversation without offering an answer.
Giles, who plays saxophone in Standing on the Corner, made his solo debut last year with Tower, an album that aimed to showcase his lyrical ability as a rapper. On this eight-track follow-up, he’s still working toward a distinct identity. A line like “We write style, all with the stroke of a pen” could be delivered by nearly any young MC, but it suggests an awareness on Giles’ part that he is still developing as an artist. And while Rain is only obliquely autobiographical, setting tones more than scenes, when Giles does get specific (“Had me a block swallow up niggas mad fast/Tags and them black masks, I seen it all”), he suggests a well of untold stories waiting for their time.
That undefined quality can enhance the power of Giles’ frequent Biblical allusions. On the plaintive highlight “Wondering,” he raps, “Feel fire approaching/For the things that I’ve done/For the things that I’m holding.” The image of retributive fire calls back to the opening track, but once again, he leaves the details unmentioned. Later on the same song, Escobar sings, “Looked into my father’s eyes/And I realize, I realize/Why I was wondering.” There’s a lot of wondering on this album, and little moral certainty, which feels right for a work of art about faith.
In under 20 minutes, There Will Be Rain offers a lovely melange of jazz, hip-hop, gospel, and soul. There are no grand experiments, but just enough variance within that spectrum. Giles’ rapping, likewise, is perfectly competent, a steady vessel. On “Impatient,” the album’s best song, his flow is metronomic as he connects his own experiences of moving around as a kid to a larger antsiness. “Feel sick of waiting and missing payments,” he raps, “And missing love/Why niggas hating?” The music pulls back with violin stammers and pushes forward with a piano melody. There’s a deep longing to know in the song—to know what he’s growing toward, or to know what he wants at all.
