YRM (Your Righteous Mind)

Recording information: Hinge Studios, Chicago, IL; JavsJoint, Katy, TX.
Photographer: Dominick Guillemot.
Having previously released The Law of Confession, Pt. I in 2009, Donald Lawrence & Co. eschew a Pt. II for the moment in favor of 2011's equally conceptual choral gospel collection YRM (Your Righteous Mind). Lawrence, serving as usual as a combination singer, preacher, and master of ceremonies, has some involved ideas to get across, an early one being "You're not a natural being having a spiritual experience, but you're a spiritual being having a natural experience," a statement he makes initially in the lead-off title song and elaborates on during the next track, "Spiritual." That song has a slow soul-funk groove reminiscent of Sly & the Family Stone, and elsewhere, Lawrence makes his musical influences clear, beginning with a cover of Walter Hawkins' "When the Battle Is Over" by declaring, "We gonna take you back to the `80s," and remaining in that decade for a cover of Chaka Khan's 1985 hit "Through the Fire," sung by Tobbi White-Darks and Tommi White. In context, the secular lyric can be taken as directed to God instead of a lover, much like many CCM lyrics that sound like love songs. Most of the time, Lawrence has weightier matters on his mind, however, as he takes on the notion of religious belief as transcending mere human logic in "Not Making Sense, Making Faith." But however theological the underpinning may be, Lawrence and his singers and choir never forget to be entertaining and uplifting. By the end, they are declaring "We Agree" and adding, "Anything is possible." ~ William Ruhlmann