Charles Bradley Featuring Menahan Street Band – Victim Of Love – Vinyl Record

Description

Charles Bradley Featuring Menahan Street Band – Victim Of Love – Vinyl Record

Charles Bradley sings with an urgency that makes every declaration of love sound hard-earned. Victim Of Love, his second album, arrived in 2013 after the remarkable late-career breakthrough of No Time For Dreaming. Working again with producer Thomas Brenneck and Menahan Street Band, Bradley turns that momentum into a record full of affection, doubt and determination. His voice is rough at the edges and powerful at its center, able to move from an intimate plea to a full-bodied cry without losing the feeling behind the words. The album gives that voice a rich setting of soul, funk and touches of psychedelic color. Bradley’s debut had arrived when he was already in his sixties, after years of work and small-scale performances. That history gives the arrival of a second full album particular significance: listeners could finally follow his own songs across a developing catalog.

“Strictly Reserved For You” makes the record’s purpose clear from the start. Bradley brings conviction to a love song without making it sound effortless or carefree. “You Put The Flame On It” and “Let Love Stand A Chance” continue that emphasis on connection, while the title song gives the album its emotional center. The performances draw on the language of classic soul, where a small change in a singer’s emphasis can carry the weight of a whole story. Bradley’s phrasing gives these songs a lived-in quality, and the musicians respond with arrangements that support his intensity while leaving room for the words to land.

Menahan Street Band are essential to the record’s character. Their rhythm section, guitar and horn textures have a close, ensemble feel, with the kind of detail that becomes more apparent as the songs unfold. Brenneck’s work with Bradley grew from a relationship that began years before the singer’s first album, and that familiarity is audible in the balance between singer and band. The playing can be tightly controlled without sounding stiff. Around Bradley’s vocal, the arrangements create shifts in color and pressure that help the album move beyond a single traditional soul setting. The music has a strong rhythmic foundation and a willingness to explore darker corners.

“Love Bug Blues” brings a particularly distinctive flavor to the sequence, while “Dusty Blue” gives the band an instrumental space of its own. “Confusion” and “Where Do We Go From Here?” open the album toward uncertainty, making the more hopeful songs feel like part of a larger emotional journey. By the closing “Through The Storm,” the title Victim Of Love has accumulated several meanings. Bradley can sound wounded and resilient in the same performance. That combination explains why his singing connects so strongly: the power comes from vulnerability as much as volume, and the record gives both qualities a place to develop.

This Daptone and Dunham vinyl edition contains the complete eleven-track album. It captures Bradley at a point when a lifetime of performing had finally led to sustained recognition for his own recordings. The music is approachable enough for a listener arriving through one song, but the full album reveals the range of feeling within his partnership with Menahan Street Band. Soul collectors will recognize the traditions behind the performances, and listeners new to Bradley will hear a singer with an unmistakable presence. Victim Of Love offers moving songs, a finely responsive band and a voice that makes tenderness feel every bit as forceful as anguish.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Track Listing

Strictly Reserved For You
You Put The Flame On It
Let Love Stand A Chance
Victim Of Love
Love Bug Blues
Dusty Blue
Confusion
Where Do We Go From Here?
Crying In The Chapel
Hurricane
Through The Storm