Raul Malo - After Hours
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Free Music Notes for After Hours
Free Music Review: A great jazzy-country CD
Hit: 4 Stars
I listened to Raul Melo's 'After Hours' today in my car after buying it. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It is a very nice country/jazz CD. To me it is more jazz than anything else and don't know why the album was the Hot Shot Debut on Billboard's Country Album charts at # 43 for weekending 8*4*07, perhaps it has something to do with him being a country artist. Anyway, my favorite track on the CD is #8, "Husband and Wives", it is a GREAT twangy, country/jazz song. His vocals on the CD remind me of Frank Sinatra. So if you like this type of music, I recommend this CD.
Ken
Long Island, NY
Free Music Review: Raul could sing the phone book!
Hit: 4 Stars
Raul Malo's new album is as usual a treat for ears because, frankly, he could sing the phone book and sound good. The treatment of Cold Cold Heart is the exception. He sounds like he is trying too hard to put a new spin on an old melody. Norah Jones did it better.Free Music Review: ENJOY!
Hit: 4 Stars
Raul Malo can successfully "cover" any music selection he chooses; his voice is true and strong. I enjoy 99/44% of what he does.Free Music Review: Unengaging supper club countrypolitan
Hit: 3 Stars
Malo's second album of covers in as many years takes a step away from the pop songs of 2006's "You're Only Lonely." But even with the nominally country music titles covered here, he's still taking another step away from the twang of his group work with the Mavericks. There's some pedal steel here, but it's played for melody rather than twang and mixed among piano and lightly played drums. With a clarinet winding through many tracks and Nelson Riddle-styled horns, Malo croons countrypolitan to supper club arrangements. Unfortunately, this Rat Pack country swing doesn't have the soul of the Mavericks, the boozy charm of Dean Martin, the swagger of Elvis (or even Dwight Yoakam) or the emotional gravitas of Ray Charles.
It's not unconvincing; Malo feels at home here, but he often sounds like he's singing at a wedding or variety show rather than really inhabiting these songs as an interpreter. "Crying Time" has neither the earthy country pain of Buck Owens' original nor the aching despair of Ray Charles' cover, and a sax-revved edition of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart" would better fit Wayne Newton in Las Vegas. "Inside the Pocket of a Clown" sounds like Dwight Yoakam imitating the slur of Dean Martin, but isn't as effective as either. One of the album's better tracks, Roger Miller's "Husbands and Wives," has a wonderful instrumental break, but Malo's vocal sounds almost imitative of Ronnie Dunn's 1998 turn.
The swing treatment works for "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I," but the horns and bass feel forced on Dwight Yoakam's "It Only Hurts When I Cry." The project looks great on paper, but despite his superb voice, Malo's either not the song stylist he imagines himself to be, or his producer and arranger don't know how to energize and frame him in the studio. The lazy tempos and manicured productions don't have the spark of innovation that fueled countrypolitan the first time around and don't recreate its emotional reach as did throwbacks like Sara Evans' "Three Chords and the Truth." [©2007 hyperbolium dot com]
Free Music Review: After hours and hours and hours...
Hit: 3 Stars
I really like Raul. And I still like him after this. His voice is one of a kind and as they say, he could sing the phone book and it would sound great. Malo tests that theory here, as he plods thru ten country-pop standards. But many of these retreads, accompanied by the maddeningly repetative clarinet (very 1950's instrumental smaltz) sounded flat. Raul delivers many of these covers with little conviction and even less point. There are some nice moments; I like HUSBANDS & WIVES. And you'll never hear a more upbeat version of COLD,COLD HEART. Malo's big-band spin on Dwight Yoakam's IT ONLY HURTS WHEN I CRY was nice as well. REMEMBER, Harry Nilsson, how can you go wrong with that holiday chestnut at any time of the year? Malo won't make you forget Ray Charles, but TAKE THESE CHAINS FROM MY HEART had enough of a pulse to make it a decent cocktail jazz remake.
All in all, when Raul Malo fronted the alt-country rockers and balladers THE MAVERICKS they were inventive and unstoppable.
After Hours, is ok for hard core Malo fans and those who long for vocal mellow jazz, other wise, for this release, as Marty Robbins once sang, El Passo.