MUSIC REVIEW -- GIL SCOTT-HERON

Gil Scott-Heron
I’m New Here
(XL)

Badass poet and ex-con Scott-Heron was the guy who declared “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” back in 1971. On the 60-year-old artist’s first album in 13 years, he still sounds like the coolest guy in the room and someone you probably wouldn’t want to mess with. He covers Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil” on I’m New Here, but it’s his own compositions (like the opening “On Coming From a Broken Home”) that set the climate for this mostly autobiographical song cycle. Scott-Heron’s battered rasp – sometimes singing, sometimes reading or rapping -- gives the songs suitable gravity, especially when he looks back on a life of some bad decisions. The music ranges from spare handclaps to full-band throttle. But Scott-Heron – reflective, defiant -- provides the most volume. --Michael Gallucci