Tangalo - Good Enough For Gringos (tangalo.com.au)
WELL this is a first for this column — a tango album.
Tangalo is a Sydney-based quintet featuring former Border man Owen Salome.
Good Enough For Gringos is about feelings. There’s passion, there’s violence and, of course, there is love.
It’s hard not to get drawn in by this dazzling and tight outfit, be it Salome’s intricate guitar work, Amy Putt’s powerful piano pieces or Susie Bishop’s warm vocals and violin.
Emily-Rose Sarkova (vocals, accordion) and Johan Delin (double bass) are prominent and crucial to the vibrant act’s authentic sound.
Along with their modern reinvention of several “standard” tangos (most notably La Payanca and Poema), Tangalo also delivers quality original music including the potent Salome-penned highlight Fugato.
RATING: ★★★★ IN SHORT: Spicy
Avicii - True: Avicii by Avicii (Universal)
HE’S the world’s biggest DJ with a string of top-10 hits from the biggest album of his short career.
So who better to remix the entire record than ... himself?
Swedish EDM prodigy Avicii (aka Tim Bergman) stunned the dance world when he released the bluegrass and country-tinged True in September last year.
Just 24, Avicii was setting the tone and the trends for dance music. And the public lapped it up delivering Bergman five global smashes from the CD.
True: Avicii by Avicii re-routes back to the club.
Wake Me Up does away with the folk guitar in favour of big-room beats and an extended guitar-driven outro. Hey Brother is noticeably rawer vocally than the single version and Addicted To You ups the energy levels of the original. Almost superior.
And You Make Me is remixed more along the lines of classic Avicii from the Levels era.
RATING: ★★★½ IN SHORT: Pumping
Black Fuel - Oblivienne(blackfuelband.com)
THERE’S not nearly enough classic, hard Aussie rock groups around anymore.
Remember when we loved The Angels, The Screaming Jets and The Living End.
Melbourne’s Black Fuel is set on helping us recapture our penchant for punchy pub rock.
The band has a local connection too with drummer David Geraghty a former Border Mail photographer (at least you know their artwork will be tight).
For a trio, Black Fuel has a large sound. John Coupe’s slamming bass and Geraghty’s skin smashing make for a rock-solid backbone while Chris Ball’s guitar work is a throwback to a time when music fans actually appreciated the axe.
Opener Seen By Angels is a perfect mix of hard and soft, the band’s melodic side a real strength.
She Knows is a swaying ballad and a standout, Six Feet Under is funk-fringed and Wired is pure party punch.
RATING: ★★★½ IN SHORT: Straight-up
Laura and Susie - Meremba (lauraandsusie.com)
EARLIER, I was in unfamiliar territory, reviewing a tango album by Sydney quintet Tangalo.
Struck by the band, I wrote of “Susie Bishop’s warm vocals and violin”.
But the sensual ballroom style isn’t Bishop’s only vice with the Sydney-sider teaming with sister Laura for an album at polar opposites to Tangalo.
Taking a cue from their musicial upbringing, the Bishop girls deliver delicate piano-led tunes, too complex to be labelled folk and with leans of classic celtic and Americana.
The vocals are incredibly moving with the sincerity hitting you from the lovely Holey Song.
Sunny is just that, showcasing some of the best sister harmonies you’ll ever hear and Little Song is a big, big song as the girls stretch their vocal chords over a sublime backdrop of piano, violin and guitar.
Fans of Tori Amos and even Kate Miller-Heidke will dig.
Nas - Illmatic XX (Sony)
NEW York’s Nas is one of rap music’s heavyweights.
He’s considered one of the genre’s best emcees of the past two decades.
And 1994’s Illmatic is where is all began. Says Nas: “There’s a Nigerian proverb ‘what’s past is prologue’. I’m here today because of Illmatic.”
The album spawned NY State Of Mind and was virtually a commentary of the Queensbridge area the 40-year-old grew up in.
Production was handled by DJ Premier along with Pete Rock and Q-Tip, all legends of the game.
Illmatic XX is definitely one for the fans.
Over two discs, we are treated to many rarities and freestyles, including the previously unreleased I’m A VIllain, a laidback groove jam perfectly reminiscent of the era.
The World Is Yours, It Ain’t Hard To Tell, One Love and Life’s A Bitch all get the remix treatment.
RATING: ★★★½ IN SHORT: Golden era
Harrison Craig - L.O.V.E. (Sony)
MOTHER’S Day alert!
Harrison Craig went from stuttering to stardom with a superb and stirring stint (that’s a lotta alliteration!) on The Voice last year.
Along with an impediment that affected his speech but not his sensational singing, the 19-year-old’s father left him at five, leaving Craig’s mum Janine to pick up the pieces.
And so, Craig’s second album is somewhat of a heartfelt ‘thanks mum’
It’s a super-classy effort from one of Australia’s finest up-and-coming voices, opening with a fairly true effort on Dream A Little Dream Of Me.
From there, we get smoky takes on Sinatra standards The Way You Look Tonight, Moon River and the fun title track.
Modern icons Robbie Williams (Angels) and John Legend (All Of Me) also get a respectful Craig makeover.
And some fun is had at the end on Love Is In The Air.
RATING: ★★★½ IN SHORT: Mum's the word
Sebastian Bach - Give 'Em Hell (Universal)
YOU have to be of a certain vintage to remember Sebastian Bach at his best.
Back in the late 1980s, as the hearthrob frontman for Skid Row, he was like a poor-man’s Jon Bon Jovi (literally, as JBJ signed the band to a incredibly lucrative deal — for Jon).
While Bach left SR in 1996, he is still loved for the powerful vocals that drove hits like 18 & Life and I Remember You.
Bach’s latest solo CD is power-packed. It’s harder than SR’s early work but on par with the Slave To The Grind era.
Hard rock fans will dig the inclusion of ex Guns ‘N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagen in Bach’s new band.
Opener Hell Inside My Head is pure adrenaline, reintroducing one of the great voices of a genre as does the spiralling All My Friends Are Dead, with its machine-gun metal riffing.
Dominator is surely aptly titled and the power-ballad Had Enough is a nice throwback.