Album Review: Allison Russell, In The Hour Of Chaos

Last time Hot Press saw Allison Russell in person, she was playing organ for Hozier on ‘Through Me’ at Malahide Castle in June 2023, a few months before she released her sophomore solo album The Returner. That proved to be a defiant, full-bodied gospel of joy, which followed the shattered testimony of her stunning debut Outside Child. That record is also possessed of a beautiful communal transcendence, something which In the Hour of Chaos also possesses in abundance.

In a time of alienation, Russell has gathered a paramount posse, to search for ultimate connection. Protest music it is, but with its arms wide open. Take the Prince-fomented ‘Cold April’, wherein former U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson brings the poet’s blade, Nashville artist Denitia the country-soul heat, while Russell’s daughter Ida’s school choir is the sound of the future answering back.

Elsewhere, Brittney Spencer adds deep earth and soul to ‘Black Lavender’, while Norah Jones lends ‘Really Real’ an intimate, lamp-lit grace.

Russell remains the gravitational force throughout. Her duet with the wonderful Ruby Amanfu on ‘Just Like Saturday’ is mega R&B sisterhood brilliance. Elsewhere, her collaboration with Devon Gilfillian on ‘Love is a Golden Lion’ is gospel blues gold, while the harmonies with Chibueze Ihuoma on ‘Two Stars’ are splendid. Finally, Ahya Simone’s harp marvellously closes the circle on ‘Good Omens’, completing a suite of songs built on Russell’s great twin articles of faith: joy as resistance, and music as medicine.

8/10