Nine years after she first broke through with her debut release, Carol Riddick is back with a solid 11 track set of adult soul/r&b tunes. The Philly native has a strong, at times throaty voice with hints of Anita Baker, and the lyrical content of her new compositions match the slick precision of the productions. ‘Stop, Go Back’ takes elements of contemporary R&B but overrides it with a larger soul element that keeps away from sounding like every other R&B tune out there! ‘Jump In’ has a beautiful, warm lush mid tempo feel while the stepper ‘Stay’ is a great slow burner. ‘Once You Let Go’ has an adventurous rhythm with a jazz feel, ‘Pushing Away’ has some 80s touches while the mellow ‘Never Too Late’ is a sultry groover. Good set with lots of highlights.
Trial and error is the second album by SuCh but the first that we have heard, and uses real instruments throughout. SuCh cites Jill Scott and Erykah badu amongst her influences and you can certainly hear shades of them on the excellent Neo-Soul groovers ‘Sugar Maple’ and ‘Heaven’. ‘Open Book’ is a bright and breezy up tempo track with a good beat. The duet with fellow American Idol contestant Mathenee Treco ‘P’s And Q’s’ is a lovely brass backed upper mid tempo song with an old school feel. Best of all is ‘Under My Skin’ a slinky mid tempo groove with a good B-line and Flugelhorn solo from Gabe Mervine. Elsewhere SuCh sings some Whitney style ballads and Pop and Rock influenced tracks. Varied and interesting album from a new talent with a good voice.
Maryanne Ito has made an excellent modern day Soul album in a similar vien to Jill Scott etc. The album mainly consists of mid tempo foot tappers and head nodders like ‘How I Feel’,‘You Got Me Feeling’, ‘Take Care of You’, ‘With u’, ‘Better than You’, ‘Sure shot love’ and ‘Waking Up’. There are a couple of nice duets ‘Good to me’ ft Devaun and ‘No Words’ ft David Sauls. ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ is featured in its original Soul and Soulful house remix forms. Good album
Late Addition!
It’s been nearly five years since Carmen Hendricks dropped her debut album and the wait was well worth it. Her smooth, sweet voice is backed up by some great, honest instrumentation. ‘I Will Not Let You Go’ has an understated ‘Street Life’ feel to it and Carmen’s voice has definite Randy Crawford influences. ‘Cat 3’ is a great jazzy number with a confident scat section, ‘Go’ is full of atmosphere and is another jazz laced winner, while the jazz standard ‘Stella By Starlight’ is beautifully handled. ‘Through My Eyes’ is an uptempo gem: has modern soul classic stamped all over it, while the mellow 2 over 5 is a superb, multilayered gem. Such a good comeback album after her now obscure debut. Grab this!
Australian Chelsea Wilson follows a long line of strong new female funky soul songwriters and performers and with ‘I Hope You’ll Be Very Unhappy Without Me’ she has made an album that stands up against anything previously produced. With the likes of Lance Ferguson on board the sound is rooted both in the now and the classic and the opener ‘I’m Through With Loving You’ has that undeniable Bamboo’s feel with Chelsea’s sweet vocals gracing a song about female empowerment. In fact there’s a theme running through the album, as witnessed on the title track, a cover of Esther Phillips’ ‘I Hope You’ll Be Very Unhappy Without Me’. ‘One Day At A Time’ is a sublime mid tempo crossover number that SHOULD be on the playlists of every new soul DJ out there (we have a ltd amount of 45s of this too) while the cover of Neyo’s ‘Closer’ is fantastic with an inventive use of the riff from ‘Shaft In Africa’. Many musical bases are tagged here with the down tempo blues of ‘I Let A Good Man Down’ mixing with the hectic funk of ‘Hit ‘em Like Ali’, an ode to the ‘Rumble in The Jungle’! As a first full length release packed with original material and strong covers this excels. Brilliant stuff.
