“Come With Fierce Grace” is a much quieter, more concentrated album than Alabaster DePlume’s 2022 release, “GOLD,” a kind of flipside companion to it, similar in inventiveness but different in vibe. “Come With Fierce Grace,” features far fewer vocals than “GOLD,” only a couple tracks of singing and a handful of tracks with DePlume’s soothing declamations. “GOLD” had high energy over a wide range, whereas “Come With Fierce Grace” feels more lived-in, more relaxed. There’s a palpable sense, in listening to this album, of people enjoying making music together, relishing the possibilities of collaboration, taking chances, engaging in leisurely experimentation.
DePlume and the band, in a period of flowing creativity, recorded so much material for “GOLD” at London’s Total Refreshment Centre that they were left with a bunch of tracks that didn’t quite fit with the aesthetic of that album. DePlume revisited the music from those sessions and did further editing, revision, and arrangement to produce “Come With Fierce Grace.” There’s a sense on this album that anything could emerge from the simple mix of elements that are present: sax, bass, drums and other percussion, occasional vocals—both spoken and sung, a little piano and synth, a few strings. The band move these elements around in space so fluidly and nimbly that it feels a little like magic; the instruments and their sounds sit together in a way that makes it hard to parse at times how everything is interacting; it feels both natural and manufactured, somehow.
There are some straight-up gorgeous tracks on this album, led by DePlume’s sax playing and some otherworldly work by the other players. DePlume’s sax can be forceful and sonorous, like on “Sibomandi,” “What Can It Take,” or “Greek Honey Slick,” or it can be delicate and painterly, like on “Give Me Away,” “Levels Of Human,” or “Broken Again” (probably my favorite song on the album).
“Greek Honey Slick” is among the most remarkable songs on the album: DePlume’s sax (doubled) with Sons of Kemet’s (and the Smile’s) Tom Skinner on drums. It’s all DePlume and Skinner at the start, sax phrases with a kind of loping, lurching beat from Skinner along with rumbling bass and synth. A quarter of the way through the track, DePlume doubles up his sax and adds what sounds like muted guitar strums—this all propels the song to its noisy end, with DePlume and Skinner both letting loose.