Against an almost conventional folk rock backdrop, Smith's poignant vocals and stark, poetic lyrics deliver us through a compassionate and graceful meditation on life, death, and redemption.
Few records aimed at a popular audience are so relentlessly serious.
But in grieving the recent losses of her husband, her brother, and close friends, Patti Smith gives us a precious gift to help us confront a universal and inevitable passage. The dark, slow pulsing grooves on Peace Beyond Passion have the allure of a late night soundtrack designed for cooing and wooing. But when Ndegeocello's haunted vocals begin to unload her smoldering anger and deep anguish, the swoon is irreparably ruptured. This is a painfully bitter album about a black woman's struggle to come to terms with racism, homophobia and the great wall of patriarchy. His follow-up release Odelay , however, is a junkyard masterpiece built upon a knotty foundation of exotic samples, skewed studio effects, and dirty guitar noise.