The façade is moving in part because of the occasional ways it cracks. Gritty one minute and detached the next, it's confessional in subject matter but brittle, even chilly, in delivery. White’s blend of '70s soul, variety-show country, and music theater is a perpetual mixed signal. Like Elvis in Hawaii or a leather sofa with a plastic slip cover, Prass and her collaborator Matthew E. What made Natalie Prass’ first album stand out from the seemingly endless pile of Authentic American Roots Music wasn’t how real it felt, but how artificial. Though it’s part two in a slated trilogy, Blackheart feels like the completion of an artistic vision. -Jazz Monroeĭawn Richard: "Phoenix" As "Projection" simmers down, ambient afterthoughts swing in and out of earshot in parabolic arcs: Synths undulate, Björk-ish vocals teem, woodwind flutters, shutters flicker. Blackheart’s sounds are ambitious not just in breadth and scale (though highlights "Calypso", "Warriors", and "Castles" are staggering by any metric) but in their detail, too. The beats, co-produced with Noisecastle III, are a revelation, sending R&B spinning into any and all nearby galaxies. "Blow" pledges to "Forget this modest shit/ We taking all of it". Its genre-busting scope is also a form of catharsis, coming from a 31-year-old industry vet who is finally her own boss (not to mention manager, label, and publicist). Recorded around the time of her grandmother’s death and father’s cancer diagnosis, as well as the demise of her former band Danity Kane, the album is deep and raw, emotionally epic even in its sonic plateaus. At once vast, inventive, unfashionably earnest, and rapturously liberated, Blackheart is a stunning personal statement from Dawn Richard.