'Flying with Angels', beautiful and urgent songs (★★★★✩), and other albums of the week
Suzanne Vega finally breaks a recording silence of unreleased material that has lasted almost a decade, and does so with a lyrically committed work that is highly relevant in terms of topicality, though without neglecting its poetic side. This thematic raw material has been, and is, inherent to her career and her status as an artist and creator, from one angle or another, as was her last album to date, focused on the work and figure of Carson McCullers. Now she approaches the scene with a variety of stylistic resources that are as remarkable as they are commendable, always gravitating around her unmistakable, warm, and intimate voice, a vehicle that undoubtedly facilitates the reach of her songs to the listener.
With the once-again complicit help of producer Gerry Leonard – possibly the person responsible for that opening up to sounds like rock, funk, soul, and jazz – the New York musician and performer swings between the urban and the spiritual to share her fear, concern, and reflection on situations such as the threatened freedom of expression ( Speaker's Corner ), the symbolic value of the degradation of life in New York ( Rats ), her heartfelt tribute to the iconic Lucinda Williams (the beautiful Lucinda ), or the devastating war in Ukraine ( Last Train to Mariupol, which she wrote in 2022 shortly after the outbreak of the conflict). And one cannot overlook Dylan's presence on the album through the song Chambermaid, which Vega constructs in the form of a well-knit pastiche based on the glorious I Want You.
★★★✩✩'PLEASURE'pop-soulCandelion YGSF Young Gun Silver Fox
'Pleasure'
From the opening track, Stevie & Sly, Andy Platts and Shawn Lee impress with their carefully crafted, elegant, and progressively addictive cocktail of pop and soul. A formula that flirts with soft pop and soul with touches like the guitars in The Greatest Loser , the winds of Stealing Time , and the funk pulse. Californian sunshine, rousing melodies, and definitely contagious vibes.
★★★★✩'All Things...' Orange Rocklake Record Rufus T. Firefly
All good things...
The 14 tracks that fill Todas las cosas buenas are guaranteed to satisfy (with titles like He soñado que playaba en Triángulo de Amor Bizarro ). Víctor Cabezuelo and Julia Martín-Maestro fine-tune their unmistakable rock psychedelia, sometimes with lyrics of dimension, sometimes with emotional intensity, sometimes with a sophistication that ultimately seduces.
★★★✩✩R31URBAN-LATINSELF-PUBLISHED 31 FAMA work that encompasses a stylistic variety, naturally avoiding its previously recognizable sound formula. The sextet portrays itself as a collective and as individuals, and from this emerges a richness where lyrics and rhythms coexist with face and eyes, such as La Pili or Así es la vida , or a version of Marina Rossell's La gavina in a mambo-merengue style with Magalí Sare on backing vocals.
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