Collin Miller & The Brother Nature’s A Lesson in Love
One need never wonder why music and romance are so inexorably intertwined. We reach for music when we seek to feel; an act as instinctual as breathing. It is no wonder then why music-making and song craft are so often deployed to make sense of love, the most incompressible, and often ephemeral, of human emotions. Such is the pursuit of soul outfit Collin Miller & The Brother Nature on their second full-length effort: A Lesson in Love. Drawing on the rich tropes of the genre to craft an evocative synthesis of funk, gospel and R&B, the album’s narrative structure testifies to a relationship finished, but not fully realized, arcing from affection and desire to dejection and introspection in an effort to pick up the pieces and emerge more complete than before.
The record begins with the invocation “A Greeting to Love,” tastefully referencing Pharoah Sanders “Greeting To Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner)” before crescendoing into the yearning nocturnal soul of “The Prowl” and “Here It Is.” Blanketed in swells of brass and organ, the sweet croon of frontman Collin Miller is entreating, evoking tender blue-eyed soul men of yore. The group’s swaying reworking of prior single “Everyday Lovers” introduces groove as budding feelings manifest into desire, benefiting from a modern oscillating vamp to conjure a dreamy atmosphere of plucked guitar melodies and recessed horn lines. Broken by the breezy ballad “Night Light,” which sports one of the album’s strongest melodies, the brief interlude “In Time…” precedes one of A Lesson in Love’s strongest moments: the boisterously funky “Come on In.” Propelled by a burbling wah and galvanic bass, it is an undisputed highlight in which the full weight and presence of the band are energetically felt. As the mirth evaporates on “White Train,” the relationship’s end is at hand, climaxing in the palpable anguish of the track’s smoldering guitar solo. There is catharsis in the end, however, as the searching title cut ably demonstrates. Every end is a new beginning to learn the multitudes that reside in oneself and push forward. A Lesson in Love shows just how true this is for Collin Miller & The Brother Nature as they enter an exciting new chapter in their discography.
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