Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 10/10/2006
Lullabye Arkestra are a bass-and-drum vocal duo that is, in practicality, anything but. Drummer
Justin Small (from
Do Make Say Think), and bassist
Katia Taylor are Canadian soulsters who understand what deep distortion-drenched
soul music is all about. This is deep white Canadian
soul that packs a wallop -- especially when considered in light of the pair adding a three-piece horn section, a Hammond B-3, and a violin that is sometimes overdubbed to sound like a string section.
Taylor can sing like a midnight gutter canary who has heard the intensities of both
Carla Thomas and
Otis Redding, but doesn't have the vocal chops necessary to pull that off, so she relies on pure guts, piss, and vinegar. With
Small's less overwrought singing style (though he gets to needle-in-the-red
gospel shout levels as well -- and makes
Jack White doing the same thing sound like he's wearing a sterile lab coat), the duo pulls it off just fine, though
the Lullabye Arkestra sound like a
bar band in a
horror film more than a
Goldwax soul singles act. But the
soul thang isn't the only trick in the band's fanny pack. They know how to roll with the
lounge blues, the swampy nocturnal whelping
torch songs from the dark night of the soul, dope-fiend
circus music, and humid, sex-starved love
ballads. The best tunes here are
"Y'Make Me Shake" with its roiling-boil bass throb,
"All I Can Give Ya," and
"Ass Worship." ~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
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