Mayhem - Imelda May - 2010
There's a cold hand of dread touching my shoulder as I look at the genre here. I've never been any sort of a fan of rockabilly music, but to be fair, I've never listened to a full album of it before, so what am I judging my dislike on? Well, mostly its affiliation with the fifties, a decade whose music I generally can't stand.
Happy Days? You can keep it, mate. Just not into all that stuff. But hey, Imelda's an Irish artist and I should at least give her a shot. Doubt I'll be breaking open an extra packet of cookies on this one, though!
Starts off okay, to be fair: decent guitar rock. Imelda has a good voice, though I could do without the annoying wolf-howls on "Psycho", and the addition of brass on the title track just doesn't really work for me, but then I'm not overfond of brass anyway. Much better is the slow ballad "Kentish Town Waltz", really beautiful and touching, showing another side of Imelda as she reins in the madcap freneticism to turn in a truly lovely song. Course, it doesn't last, but the cool shuffle of the almost thirties-inspired "All for You" keeps the quality high, and there's a touch of Fleetwood Mac's "When the Sun Goes Down" in "Eternity", while there's an eclectic mix of reggae and swing on "Inside Out".
This seems to be a thing with Imelda May: far from being just a rockabilly artiste, she appears to cross over and mix several genres, from thirties swing and jazz to reggae and country-infused folk, seemingly equally comfortable wherever her music takes her. But her main love does remain rockabilly, and she rocks out in no uncertain fashion in this style on tracks like "Sneaky Freak", "Pulling the Rug" and "Let Me Out", with a curious mix of Mariachi and Hawaiian music in "I'm Alive" that somehow works. The album ends on an interesting rockabilly take on Soft Cell's "Tainted Love": always hated the song, and I have to say this doesn't make me like it any the more.
Interesting album, certainly eclectic, decidedly diverse. Not the sort of music I normally listen to, and I'd probably not be in a hurry to listen to another album of hers, but for what she does Imelda May does it well, and I suppose the biggest compliment I can pay this album is that I know what I hate, and I don't hate this. Much.
TRACK LISTING
Pulling the Rug
Psycho
Mayhem
Kentish Town Waltz
All for You
Eternity
Inside Out
Proud and Humble
Sneaky Freak
Bury My Troubles
Too Sad to Cry
I'm Alive
Let Me Out
Tainted Love