Rating: ****
Hey there! Jude the Comedy Dude here to review another release from Uproar Records. This time I ended up with the latest by Renee Santos in my inbox titled "Outside the Box". Santos hails from New York and has a pretty impressive resume. She's been on Showtime and more recently appeared on "New Amsterdam" on NBC.
She's made quite a name for herself in Los Angeles and New York in the LGBTQ+ comedy scenes.
This her debut album and it was recorded at the Comedy Underground in Seattle. What a great little club that is. I'm excited to hear if the electricity of that room will translate on the LP.
I'm gonna go ahead and listen to it now. I'll report back below.
Click here to see more about Renee Santos and to purchase “Outside the Box”
Listen to "Lesbian Box" on Soundcloud here:
Honestly, the album starts pretty slow with some local references that might fly right over some people's heads. It stuck with the Seattle crowd but I can't imagine the rest of the country/world finding it very appealing. Luckily we move into some very strong material about her mom being a Trump supporter. It ends up with a very entertaining and equally important song about Trump's presidency sung to the tune of Buffalo Springfield's "Stop Children What's That Sound". The middle portion of the special relies on the prevailing theme of lesbian life and issues. It's easy to tread familiar territory here, but she manages to make it all original due in part to the fact that she's a very gifted storyteller. One of my favorite bits on the album is called "Straight Men". Really punchy. Really real. Really funny. The album remains consistently funny throughout as we get to the closing bit entitled "Brown Part of the Rainbow". It's another song and it's again very clever and quite funny even if it lacks the punch of some of the other tracks on the last half of the album.
This special really cooks for the most part. Santos can really spin a yarn, and we really get to know her as a person as well as a comedian throughout. In spite of a slow start and an underwhelming closer, this comedy album is pretty excellent overall. Fans of Sarah Silverman are gonna have a new favorite comic.