by Raquel Pinheiro
Odeon Hotel, Dead Combo’s 7th studio album, is not a far cry
from Tó Trips and Pedro Gonçalves band usual sound. The mix of fado, spaghetti westerns
soundtracks, some flavours of americana and blues, a touch of Africa, Northern &
Sub-Saharan, an invocation of a jazz big band (in a reduced format), are all
there. Where it stands apart is on its more grounded, more matured, yet, still
fresh way of assembling all the, apparently, disjointed parts, in a whole
unique scenery.
Produced by Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age), who also
contributes with vocals and guitar playing, and with guest musicians Alexandre
Frazão (drums), João Cabrita (baritone, tenor and alto sax), Bruno Silva (viola),
Mick Trovoada (percussion), Odeon Hotel’s thirteen tracks show a band secure in
its path, not afraid of adding new layers to its creativeness and using guest
musicians and singer, Mark Lanegan in I know, I Alone (English translation of Fernado
Pessoa’s Ah, só eu sei) in an effective and interesting way.
Lenegan’s vocals brings a dark, dragged, sombre, painful
tone that perfectly convey’s Pessoa’s poem spirit. Behind it, the music is a
match, slow, grey, serious, funerary. Verdi’s La Forza Del Destino cover sees
the Italian composer music absorbed and transmuted in a tender and sorrowful cry
of fate/fado.
Joyous, more deconstructed, danceable even, moments can be
found in Theo’s Walking and Desassossego and don’t lurk far in Deus Me Dê Grana.
(Sony Music, 2018)
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