Sacred Places is the debut album from Luqman Browns latest band Dope Sagittarius, the album joins the current trend of coming with a comic book "Dope Sagittarius In The Bumbaclout Strain" with artwork by Tim Smith III the Marvel comics illustrator. The album was originally due out in 2017 but Luqman Brown had a stroke and had to learn to walk and talk again before he also had to have heart Surgery in 2019, thankfully he has recovered well enough to now be able to put the album out on Bhuddabug Records.
The album opens with the poppy sounds of Alive, that while it sounds all upbeat and happy the lyrics are questioning all of the haters and abusers spewing vile invective and violence across America, as they live for today and try to get beyond the hatred to a place with more love and understanding in it over the cool squelchy beats.
Brunchin With Bitches is a great song title and the electro soul pop song that goes with it isn't quite the put down song you might imagine it to be, but is a damn cool look at how the bitching never ends with some people.
The single Black Empress is next with two versions the second one being the radio edit, I still love the violin solo from Mazz Swift on this very cool song that has vocals that sound like a 60's afro futurist poem before Mike Ladd’s rap comes in to fuse the past with the current and look towards the future as the bass drops.
Define Love one of the other singles from the album is next and is a cool slice of laid back soul pop to get close and personal too.
Hate Us is a funky dancefloor song asking us all to hate a little less and bring the love, As they try to figure out where all the hate comes from, I hope they can defeat all the haters with the power of a great Funkadelic style jazz funk song and the brass section sounds so cool in the middle of it all as they wonder about how to stop all the fighting in Chirac and Detroit.
Quitting Time has some fuzzy guitar under the jazzy tune and heavy beats as the questions of what Luqman wants to quit unfold and the organ break comes in. This song also features a long period of silence as if they have quit playing and just walked on out, as we are left to reflect on why America is in such a sorry state right now, as well as lots of other places around the world.
Laronda is a song for his one true love that makes him feel like no other, yes that's Laronda who he spurned once and now wants back and he pours his heart out telling her she's the best thing in his life.
Break It Down has a good bit of despair wrapped inside a breezy upbeat slice of electro-pop. Sacred Place has some cool and weird noises around the main beats and tune as Luqman makes us know how he gets to his Sacred Place and then in comes the toasting style Jamaican rap about all sorts of fine weed and the tune has some cool Wackies style elements to it.
Sharpest Claws is the albums only real rocker of a song, this is a good piece of driving rock with a soul tinge to it, as they get down and dirty ready to rake her claws all down his back, this has a libidinous swagger to it like the dirtiest sounding Lenny Kravitz songs.
The album closes with Brunchin With Misses that is the daytime radio version of Brunchin With Bitches as this electro pop takes us to the brunch table, it's a cool pop song to laze around too as you try to stop those Misses from bitching all the time.
Find out more at https://www.buddhabugrecords.com/shop/p/beni-shoga-y62bf-sgpj6 https://dopesagittarius.bandcamp.com/album/sacred-places https://www.facebook.com/dopesagittarius
