I loved the previous album, White Men are Black Men Too, so much that I couldn't imagine how they were ever going to follow it up; and predictably the first time I heard this it seemed underwhelming, a variation on the same sonic theme without whatever it was which made White Men sound so astonishing. In fact it seemed like they'd made a rap record with significantly less emphasis on the soulful vocals, which was odd because it sounded totally different the second time I gave it a spin to the extent that I can no longer even work out what nudged me towards that initial impression. What's more, I've now played it enough for Cocoa Sugar to sound at least as good as its predecessor, and what I took from that first hearing seems crazy with hindsight.
My guess as to the nature of the disparity is that Cocoa Sugar is a very different record to White Men, but the Young Fathers' sound is so distinctive, so immediately recognisable and unlike anything else - at least so far as I'm aware - that it takes time to recognise the variation. The sound is, roughly speaking, a sort of African gospel embellished with music made up from sounds found laying around on a laptop, non-musical glitches edited into something with both the musicality and rawness of early Motown. The difference is that where White Men had an additional touch of something resembling the influence of maybe Suicide, this one has a subtly different dynamic with more of a soulful vibe; all of which is frankly a fucking crap comparison, and one which doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever, but it's the best that I can do.
Cocoa Sugar is, after a couple of plays, at least as intense as the last one, and it's nice to have lived long enough to have heard this genuinely amazing group. Maybe that's all you really need to know.
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