“Feel It Still” was Portugal. The Man’s breakout hit. Released on their 2017 album “Woodstock,” the song propelled the band into the limelight, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, a Grammy award and over one billion streams worldwide.
To this point, the band had garnered a considerable audience, but it was nothing like the attention “Feel It Still” brought. This whiplash could easily have changed the band’s sound significantly, but “Chris Black Changed My Life,” their first original album since “Woodstock,” echoes more of their traditional modus operandi.
According to Billboard, Chris Black was a friend of the band who served as their hype man and master of ceremonies. His unexpected death in 2019 devastated the band, almost causing their dissolution and thrusting its members into isolation and tragedy.
Luckily, the band tenuously held together, and their most recent album is a tribute to their lost friend.
It opens with “Heavy Games II,” which features songwriter and producer Jeff Bhasker. At just a minute in length, it’s a brief, minimal introduction to the record that works solely with piano and vocals.
It transitions smoothly into “Grim Generation,” which switches up the timbre dramatically, ushering in more of the band’s pop-rock arranging. The drums are crunchy but understated, with a tambourine most audibly poking through the texture.
Although the beat is groovy and cheerful, a lack of dynamic and rhythmic variation causes it to get old toward the song’s end. Though it’s not long enough to become grating, it slows the momentum somewhat.
The next tune, “Thunderdome,” trades fullness for groove and features Black Thought of the Roots and Natalia Lafourcade. Although it features some of the same stagnation, it varies its texture just enough to stay engaging all the way through.
“Time’s a Fantasy” may diverge the most from the typical Portugal. The Man sound. Bringing back Bhasker, it begins with a heavily autotuned vocal line over soft, high piano chords.
It mirrors “Heavy Games II” in its composition, with piano and synth bass supporting wide vocal harmonies. It moves seamlessly into “Doubt,” retaining the same key and chords and making “Time’s a Fantasy” seem like an exaggerated introduction to “Doubt.”
This effect works well, though. “Time’s a Fantasy” builds anticipation with its sparse arrangement, which is fleshed out nicely in “Doubt.” The piano adopts a more consistent rhythm and is joined by drums, bass and guitar while the vocals take on a clearer tone and melody.
“Anxiety:Clarity” brings the album to a close. The longest song on the album, it’s also the most varied formally and dynamically. It starts softly, with drums, guitar and light vocal harmonies accompanying the main vocal melody.
Around two minutes in, it abruptly jumps up in intensity and volume, with busier drums and louder accompaniment, including a screaming saxophone. It later drops back down and builds gradually to a dense, churchy sound featuring a choir and organ, and finally ending on a joyful and triumphant “amen” cadence.
“Chris Black Changed My Life” has all the hallmarks of a thematic album — wide-ranging compositions, vague lyrics, veiled motifs and more — and it serves as a touching tribute to the band’s friend and colleague. Portugal. The Man’s signature is all over the piece, but it also feels fresh and revived, no doubt due to the band members’ personal struggles.
Although Black’s story isn’t explicitly clear in the text of the album, the love, effort and pain that went into immortalizing him is plain as day.
