Curtis Harding If Words Were Flowers LP (Vinyl)

Simply calling Curtis Harding a soul man feels reductive.

Harding's voice conveys pain, pleasure, longing, tenderness, sadness and strength - a full gamut of emotions.

Today his voice takes on an optimistic lilt with his new album, If Words Were Flowers. If Words Were Flowers is Harding's first new music since 2018, and is a follow up to his critically acclaimed Face Your Fear album. It features songs like "Hopeful", where Harding croons with devotion over a classic soul groove, textured with infectious horn playing, background singers and modern psychedelic flourishes.

Harding fuels his psychedelic sound with the essence of Soul but isn't bound by it. Instead, his songs convey an eclectic blend of genres leaping from the many musical lives he has lived from following his evangelical Gospel-singing mother on tour around the country as a child to rapping in Atlanta, forming a garage band with The Black Lips' Cole Alexander to singing back-up for Cee Lo Green.

Through these experiences he fully embraces life's darkest intricacies and conjures dynamic, addictive melodies.

Written and recorded over the past two tumultuous years, If Words Were Flowers is indeed a vibrant, intoxicating bouquet, one as diverse as it is dazzling. Drawing on vintage soul, R&B, hip-hop, garage rock, and psychedelia, the songs here are raw and gritty, fueled by airtight grooves, punchy horns, and adventurous production from Harding and frequent collaborator Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Benjamin Booker). There's a clear through line on the album from Harding's 2017 breakout, Face Your Fear, but there's obvious evolution as well, a boldness that revels in risk-taking and sonic exploration. The result is a pointed, timely album that feels experimental and classic all at once, a moving, generous collection all about love, resilience, and reconciliation from an artist who values the beauty and the power of human connection above all else.

Harding's third LP, 2021's If Words Were Flowers, finds him going from strength to strength, with a set of tunes that deliver an emotional impact while finding him continuing to stretch his musical boundaries. The rich bass, echo-laden guitars, and layers of percussion are familiar from his previous releases, and Harding and producer Sam Cohen have added lush string and horn arrangements and massed vocals on several numbers that boost the atmospherics, reinforce the psychedelic undertow of the melodies, and give the music a feeling of thematic unity that adds to the effectiveness of the material, individually and as a suite. Much of If Words Were Flowers was written and recorded during a time of unrest and uncertainty in the United States, and without calling out specific political and social themes by name, it plays very much as a product of its time, with Harding using love as a metaphor to discuss human understanding and compassion as well as its absence (especially on the cool but impassioned 'Where Is the Love'). The arrangements often nod to the conscious funk and soul anthems of the late '60s and early '70s, both in their taught grooves and the mingled moods of hope and confusion. And Harding continues to impress as a vocalist, delivering strong, authoritative, and perceptive performances on all eleven tracks.