Fred Hammond has released what might have been his masterpiece but isn't. The Gospel great has had God, Love And Romance in the works for four years. A double album about love and God. A trip, if you will, from romantic to spiritual love and the story of how one plays off the other. And if anybody can handle that, it would be Hammond, who has brought a harder r&b, soul, funk, 80s Philly, sound to Gospel since the 1980s and is reverred today.
In God, Love And Romance uses a sub Tyler Perry storyline, two girlfriends take a third who is having difficulties in her love life, to a club. The songs are interspersed by dialogue between the girls, the person in the club, and varous lovers and husbands. And therin lies the problem. What I will accept in a song from Hammond, I won't necessarily take for a moment as dialogue. The effect is extremely irritating, the songs can't buil on each other because the most they have at a time is two.
On the other hand, for the most part the songs are terrific. The only true weak links occur during a some power ballads in the middle, My Lady And Myself" forgets the song. Stevie Wonder wouldn't have bothered with it. "One More try" is moribund, and a couple of others fail to jail. But seriously, these are true exceptions. All the jazz songs are top drawer: "When I Come Home To You" is amazing, it uses a purely melodic piccolo and finds Hammond singing circles round it.
The songs of praise are even better, "Better Love" and "I Feel Good", slab dab in the middle of the Gospel side, are things of intense power; it reminds me why a man with no faith returns over and over agaib to people with lots of faith.
If Hammond had dumped the wrap around and parsed it to 12 songs, he would have one of the albums of the year. As it stands, at the very least try a handful of these songs.
Grade:A-