A shamelessly no-holds-barred grandiosity, Warm Heart of Africa isn't the kind of debut we expect these days. The Very Best make no claims toward authenticity, but their keen devotion to sincerity makes for a refreshingly pure album dutifully laying the groundwork for impressively realized innovation.
Album opener ""Yalira"" isn't a call to arms so much as it is a call to life. It doesn't introduce a new morning; it creates one, grabbing the sun by its arm and dragging it over our heads. The rest of Warm Heart does its best to make you feel at home, smothering you with nothing but pure and unbridled joy as if the Very Best have something to prove as hospitable hosts.
In fact, the Very Best do embody some amount of escape, if not outright holiday. There are fragments of western influence scattered throughout, but Warm Heart is especially rich in east-of-the-Atlantic appeal. It's an optimistic view of Africa that would be unsettlingly Lion King-esque if it wasn't so overpoweringly joyous. Enough has been said about Africa's political dissolutions and indeterminate standards of living; Warm Heart is about the bright souls that get washed out in the murky perceptions.
The most fascinating track on the album is also the riskiest, a zero-sum gamble employing the singer of one of the most divisive bands of the decade (Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig) to fill the gaps on one of the year's most universally enjoyable records. But even the cynics who contend that Vampire Weekend are nothing but pretentious hacks whose summery dispositions are all too contrived and their plagiarized afro-pop bordered on slander can't help but succumb to the gleefully assured Ezra backed by the Very Best.
It'll probably take until next summer for an eco-friendly car commercial to exhaust ""Warm Heart of Africa,"" but Vampire Weekend's notoriety means it probably won't take a Seth Rogen film to make ""Warm Heart of Africa"" the most overplayed party song of the winter. But, like ""Paper Planes"" before it, the real heartbreak isn't its enervating overexposure but that the song's unforgiving hooks were ever so innocent and righteously catchy to begin with.
There's enough on Warm Heart to go around, though. On the equally glowing ""Kamphopo"" they prove they don't need Ezra Koenig, they're just not the kind of band to exclude anyone. Likewise, the appearance of M.I.A. on ""Rain Dance"" doesn't give the impression that she brings anything to the song they couldn't have provided themselves, but the sense of comraderie is the same thing breaking down barriers and making Warm Heart such a success.
For an album so comfortable, there's an amazing amount of experimentation. The Very Best know very well performing a song in a different key isn't innovation, and as warm and homely as it sounds, Warm Heart of Africa is incredibly imaginative, running away from comfort zones to foster greener pastures in assimilating genres. Warm Heart's true standout, the soothingly thunderous ""Julia,"" tags a piercing dub-step romp underneath Esau Mwamwaya's yearning cries. ""Ntende Uli"" takes a more reserved approach to grime, tempering both Mwamwaya's effervescent vocals and the quivering bass-line to induce a more expansive depth.
In ""White Men Can't Jump,"" Wesley Snipes ridiculed Woody Harrelson for not being able to hear Jimi Hendrix, and that he could only listen because he was deprived of a common ground on which to process the legend's message. The beauty of the Very Best is that they operate in the exact opposite fashion. The majority of the lyrics are sung in foreign language, but their meaning is evident. If anything, the indecipherable words rid the songs of extraneous expressions, providing a clearer picture of the song's meaning.
By the time ""Zam'dziko"" closes the album, the sun practically needs to be coaxed into sitting back down in the West. In 13 songs, the Very Best effectively synthesized the two life-bloods of the motherland, the sun's omnipotent rays finally bonding with unwavering personalities. The only thing conflating Warm Heart's empowering energy is the sense that this is the most fruitful template for expansion for years.
