FEVER! You give me fever... and a few chills!

The new album from Powerkompany is split into two distinct halves and therefore would work incredibly well as a vinyl release. Side one is entitled 'Fever' and the second side is called 'Chills'. Can you guess the album title from those clues? Yes it's 'Fever & Chills'.

Overall the production is crisp and the orchestration is superb. It is an LP that is very reminiscent of some of the best 1980s recordings that involved Trevor Horn and Anne Dudley.

So let me start with the Fever tracks. "Do I Have To Dance All Night" is probably my favourite on this side. It is a great song which I think is crying out for a Shirley Bassey cover, similar to the way she handled Pink's "Get The Party Started". Talking of covers I think that Marianne Faithfull would work some magic on "Learning To Love" with her dusky smoky vocals.

Don't get me wrong though, the vocals on this album are soulful and so very powerful. If you like that middle eastern/Buddha Bar flavour to your music you are going to love "Even More Than This". That track also carries some pretty menacing orchestration too. Powerkompany must surely be fans of Belinda Carlisle too; if you shut your eyes you can picture Belinda belting out "Can't Cry" although nowhere near as well as Powerkompany do!

The Chills part of the release does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a fantastic benchmark for all of those chill out albums on the market. Compilers of such releases, you need to listen to Powerkompany, that is an order. In particular the opening Chills track, "Like" is a marvelous example of a perfect chill out tune.

All of these songs make great use of a wide musical palette with emotional, sweeping and cinematic soundscapes. My favourite Chills tracks are "Holiday" and "Dreams"

COMMENTS

• Daniel Sado
  Interesting...