BY BILL BENTLEY
Raul Malo, Sinners & Saints,Fantasy Records
The music starts with just a trumpet, lonely and haunting like someone is playing only for themselves at the dark end of the street. Then the lead guitar begins, not far from a high tide that could easily drown a whole town. With a cascading snare drum and tremolo-laced chords, Raul Malo’s new album announces itself with total intent. In the air is an aura that cannot be mistaken. He is going for it. By the end of the opening title song, it sounds like Malo has let loose a million yellow jackets and they’re ready to sting us to death.
There is something slightly unhinged about “Sinners & Saints” that promises the rest of the set is going to shake us upside and then leave us limp. Call it a premonition, but the way the former Mavericks frontman recorded the basic tracks at his home studio in Nashville and then took them to Austin to pour on the hot sauce and stick an electric cattle prod into them shows his seriousness. The mixture of originals and inspired covers also tips Raul Malo’s hand: Rodney Crowell’s “‘Til I Gain Control Again,” the Spanish-language classic “Sombras” and Los Lobos’ “Saint Behind the Glass” are a hat trick of heartfelt power, and even at only nine songs, this is an album meant to matter. The man has never mixed up quite so many styles with such free-spirited elan, and even his vocals sound like he decided to set himself free and just shoot for freedom. There’s no question the voice is in a class by itself. The range and power are almost a wonder of nature; what’s really striking is how Malo’s continued to grow.
By now many veteran singers are worried more about marketing plans and potential sync licenses than they are finding the pure heart of a song and then discovering a way to make it unique. But that’s exactly what happens here. Whether it’s the West San Antonio swing of “Superstar,” the Jimmy Webb-like emotional sophistication of “Staying Here” or the spiritual luster of “Matter Much to You,” there is no way Raul Malo isn’t smiling somewhere, knowing that when it was time to open his soul and show everything he didn’t hesitate a second. Recent months have delivered a handful of chillbumpers from Robert Plant, Neil Young and Eric Clapton, and Raul Malo is right there with them, creating music that takes us somewhere nothing else does: that place inside where we all live and love together.
Bill Bentley is a writer, musician, publicist, record producer and A&R director. He once played drums with Lightnin’ Hopkins.
About Karen Young
Follow My Daily Find