When Florida-born Orleans parish singer Benjamin Booker gets the blues, he likes to funnel its lightning-loud, Albert King–stylized classicism with a hint of the crackling garage-rock ardor of The White Stripes—that’s been a given since his 2014 self-titled debut. With “Lower”, however, Booker goes lower still to an icier sonic space, and with the help of shuddering electro-rap producer Kenny Segal he finds the fight in his cause and righteous indignation everywhere.
“Black Opps” looks at empowered African Americans of the past (and surely present) being brought down by the US government. The children at the center of “Same Kind of Lonely” are given dark context within a collage of school shooting audio clips.
Those less fortunates brought to heel by addiction and homelessness are given light and hope, even if they have to claw their way through the darkness to get there. “I see the way they talk about people on this side of town,” a bruised Booker intones on “LWA in the Trailer Park,” a moment not unlike King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign.” Maybe “Lower” is a lot to take in all at once, and maybe Booker’s third album isn’t an obvious choice for one of the best of 2025, as it seems from another time—long before January.
Either way, “Lower” lingers like a haunting refrain and the darkest of nu-politics screeds.
The Fat Angel Sings 