While Lizz Wright's previous release, her 2010 album Fellowship, provided telling insights into her gospel roots, the genre-defying sound-world of Freedom & Surrender seems to place the singer in the same aesthetic orbit as storytellers such as Nina Simone. Produced by Larry Klein, Wright's fifth album and Concord debut Freedom & Surrender is framed by (and named after) two extraordinarily powerful songs by her long-standing collaborator, Toshi Reagon: the propulsive album opener ‘Freedom’ (penned solely by Reagon) and the seductive ‘Surrender’, co-written with Wright. A passionate Nick Drake fan, Wright's captivating take on ‘River Man’ possesses a luminosity that compels attention. With a gorgeous vibes/celeste intro that evokes memories of Little Anthony and the Imperials, Gregory Porter lends his mellifluous baritone to the intimate duet ‘Right Where You Are’, a song Wright co-wrote with J.D. Souther. As for Wright herself, her uniquely expressive voice has never sounded more beautiful, possessing a kind of redemptive power that goes straight to the heart, nowhere more so than the impressionistic ‘Here and Now’ with its deliciously ambiguous harmonies, one of a number of songs Wright penned with Klein and his songwriting partner, David Batteau.