Album Review: Be the Change, Jarrod Lawson (Dome Records, October 2020)

I’ve been entranced by Jarrod Lawson’s sophomore album since it was released a couple of weeks ago. I’ve listened to it front-to-back and sideways and I can’t get enough. Lawson’s songwriting and intensely soulful delivery transform him into a prism of sorts — taking in love, pain, sorrow, joy, and hope, and refracting it into music that makes sense of it all.

Be the Change is definitely an album for our time. “Embrace What We Are” is, at its essence, a protest song, pleading for humanism in a world beset by tribalism. Proceeds from the single go to colorofchange.org.

Let your fears be vanquished by a simple truth / That you’re my sister, you’re my brother / Let’s embrace what we are and stop killing each other

Embrace What We Are, Jarrod Lawson

Not unlike his self-titled debut, this album features tastefully balanced production that lets Lawson’s voice take a hold of you. On tracks like “Evalee” and “Universal Chord,” his harmonies and backing vocals take you to church, every time.

2020 has been a brutal year for humankind. Be the Change arrives as a salve, displacing noise with music, pain with healing.