Pressing Onward

Big Freedia has always been known for body-moving music, but on Pressing Onward. the legendary New Orleans-based bounce artist is looking to set souls in motion. The record marks Freedia’s first foray into straight-up gospel music, borrowing its name from her hometown’s Pressing Onward Baptist Church and dedicated to her late partner Devon Hurst, who passed away earlier this year. But as with Freedia’s thrilling and all-encompassing career, Pressing Onward contains surprises at every turn; alongside the raucous hip-house of “Take My Hand” and the bounce-inflected “Highway to Heaven”, there’s some of her most melodically straightforward music to date in the slow-burning “Church”. Along with guests like Billy Porter and Tamar Braxton, Freedia is joined by a full gospel choir on the majority ofPressing Onward’s 14 tracks, and the resulting effect is a maximalised version of the sonic joy-whirlwind that Freedia has built her career on creating.