In the landmark 1963 book Blues People, a critic and poet then going by the name LeRoi Jones quoted some scholarly writing that placed the “black Christian spiritual” in a tradition of African melody. He also described how songs created by American slaves were “superficially modeled” on white hymns. Despite the mutual influences, Jones argued that “the Negro’s religious music was his original creation, and the spirituals themselves were probably the first completely native American music the slaves made.”
Drawing a line toward 20th century popular music, Jones wrote that the blues “issued directly from the shout, and, of course, the spiritual.” But his more original claim concerned the way each new form reshaped the American mainstream, in turn. According to Jones, this phenomenon demanded of black artists a consistent reinvention of performance styles, in order to avoid the marketplace “overexposure” of past innovations.
With Funeral Doom Spiritual, the male soprano M. Lamar has pulled off another one of these stylistic escapes from all the previous, expected forms. And he has done so in a way that Jones might well have appreciated: by grabbing and juxtaposing vocal-production ideas from folk lamentation, European opera, and contemporary metal. This odd mix isn’t the product of an ironic mindset. Lamar is clearly aware, and respectful, of more typical approaches to the African-American religious songbook—including those by operatic sopranos. Though he also knows that exploration is part of the spiritual tradition, too.
Alongside electronic textures composed by Liturgy frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Lamar’s vocals and pianism reframe the lyrics to some well-known numbers (such as “Lay This Body Down”). And he ventures some new spirituals, as well. The hour-long song cycle is conceptually coherent and dramatically gripping—especially when Lamar’s singing moves between stark exhalations of doom and soprano lines that are full of vibrato.
The power of this shocking transition is communicated during the album’s overture, “The Demon Rising.” Early on in the track, Hunt-Hendrix’s electronic part supplies steady percussive explosions that amount to a slow beat. Lamar pounds on the low end of a Bosendorfer piano, and sing-sighs in tones of gravelly menace. Then, as Lamar moves up the keyboard, his vocals swoop up in pitch, to the top of his range.
At this point, the singer-pianist still hasn’t uttered a word. Though the work’s emotional progression has been previewed: after starting from a vantage of bleakest desolation, a more beautiful resilience comes into view. But forgetfulness is not part of the journey. Even as it anticipates some form of rebirth, Funeral Doom Spiritual holds fast to an awareness of racial injustice and physical violence.
The lyrics’ potency comes from their broad applicability, across American history. On early listens, I often wondered whether a refrain like “I carry your coffin on my back” was plucked from a vintage spiritual, or from a first-person lament related to a contemporary tragedy. The fact that the question can be asked justifies the pallor that hangs over the album, as well as the more abrasive textures in its electronic arrangement.
While the tempos and harmonies remain fairly static, the arrangements contain subtle shifts that make outsized impacts. On “They Took You From Me,” as Lamar’s voice rises to a peak of indignation (on the word “guilty”), the texture of Hunt-Hendrix’s electronics undergoes a change. What was once a drone now becomes bell-like and sparkling—akin to what might result if Oneohtrix Point Never were to interpret the music of Arvo Pärt. The sense of release, here, works as an ideal sonic accompaniment for the catharsis embedded in Lamar’s judgment, and his casting of a demon’s curse.
Funeral Doom Spiritual also exists as a work for the stage. That ritualized production recently appeared at New York’s Prototype festival, which focuses on new operas (both traditional and experimental in nature). When performed there, the piece featured a string section arranged by Hunt-Hendrix, in addition to Lamar’s singer-pianist role. I thought it was a captivating show—particularly given Lamar’s post-apocalyptic, diva costuming. Still, some of the transitions between songs were ragged. On the album, a few of Hunt-Hendrix’s string harmony ideas have been preserved, most noticeably on the electronic portion of the track “Carrying.” Overall, the studio recording’s more consistent precision makes this version of Spiritual an ideal way to encounter Lamar’s radical innovations.
