The second Shabaka & The Ancestors album, released four years after their debut, reunited all the original bandmembers (trumpeter Mandla Mlangeni, alto saxophonist Mthunzi Mvubu, tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, bassist Ariel Zamonsky, drummer Tumi Mogorosi, percussionist Gontse Makhene, and vocalist Siyabonga Mthembu), though keyboardist Nduduzo Makhathini only played on two tracks. Pianist Thandi Ntuli guested on two as well. The music was more avant-garde and even theatrical than before, with Mthembu’s poetic lyrics singing of the weight of history and the necessity of liberation, as the horns keened and wailed as a kind of anguished chorus. Track titles like “Behold, The Deceiver” and “Run, The Darkness Will Pass” indicate the balance being struck between foreboding and a kind of militant optimism, which is audible in the music and the words alike.