The album "spiritrials" is what happens when too many Saturday nights are blended seamlessly into Sunday morning. It’s for that time of the night when sobriety sets back in but the promise of salvation is still so far. This 12-song concept album is a brainchild of Sacramento emcee/producer dahLak who has been carefully crafting this second solo LP to succeed his impressive debut Dual Consciousness. dahLak calls the album “a dark gospel blue”. As the lead producer of this project, dahLak contained himself to sampling only “spirituals”; jazz spirituals, blues spirituals, and of course classic Black American gospel. The wide variety within the genre allows for a diverse range of feels while still capturing a coherent sound and vibrancy. Lyrically, dahLak is at his best. His gift for constructing strong conceptual songs shines throughout the project leaving no room for filler. Every track is a vital element for this visceral journey and still, commercially appealing standouts such as “Good Gawd”, “Work” (featuring George Watsky), and “Saved” (featuring Section.80 vocalist Javonte Pollard) dwell amongst them. Beginning at the onset of “the high”, the climax, dahLak descends into the dark backlash of hip-hop’s monotonic grand narrative: greed and lust, hedonism and materialism. Through the mess, through the muck and the mire, profound glory and residues of hope find their way back into the heart of the poet. Are we still talking about a hip-hop album? Yes. But think “hip-hop album” in the sense of art rather than a collection of disposable mp3’s. The hip-hop industry is too fast. So is the music. So is the life in the music. But as life teaches us, as spiritrials teaches us, “live fast and die young”. spiritrials is for sustainability. In music and in life.