"Halfway through the languid midtempo ballad "Send It On" from D'Angelo's new sophomore effort, Voodoo, the young retro-soul maestro and band shift tempo and melody. It's a move so understatedly dramatic that it elicits comparisons not just to obvious touchstones Marvin Gaye and Al Green, but to the Jimi Hendrix of Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland. "Although Voodoo is hardly in a league with such major statements, it's a record inviting enough to attract repeated plays of its 78-minute length. As on his 1995 debut, Brown Sugar, D'Angelo covers a wide range of concerns — sex, home cooking, the destructive side of current street life — in a deceptively offhand manner. But he's a crafty craftsman: even a throwaway workout like 'Chicken Grease' is blessed not only with a slinky groove and a guitar lick that deserves to be called just that, but bursts of Gaye-style vocal harmonies; the whole track, for all its retro flavor, ends up sounding like nothing else around.
