Ready to soar
“WELCOME to life,” declares Kyoto Protocol frontman Fuad Alhabshi on Universal Rhyme, the opening track for its new album The Pen Is Mightier.
It’s an apt description of the album, which sounds like the band – comprising Fuad, keyboardist Gael Oliveres, guitarist Hairi Haneefa, bassist Shakeil Bashir, and drummer Shanjeev Reddy – is embracing life and having more fun with its music than ever.
Its first full-length album, Catch
These Men, was only released seven years after the band was formed, and comprised new songs and previously released singles that rounded up the band’s music in those formative years.
The Pen Is Mightier, however, has the band sounding fresher and more expressive, as if free of the pressure of the history it had to live up to with the first album.
The album itself has a refreshingly 1990s alternative rock vibe.
Some songs – One Step ,for instance – do sound as if the boys have been listening to way too much Foo Fighters while writing the songs, but that’s not exactly a bad thing.
Soaring first single Delta Wing is still one of the best tracks on the record, but there are other highlights too, including the rocking Guilty Plea, and the aforementioned One Step, which may start off Foo Fighters-esque but sees the band quickly putting its own stamp on the tune before ending with a stunning instrumental flourish that segues perfectly into the following The End.
Universal Rhyme is another standout, with Fuad’s distinct vocals giving it a deeper resonance, which eventually rises to a rousing finale that makes your heart soar. It’s a feeling you get constantly throughout the album, and a great indication that maybe, just maybe, Kyoto Protocol is finally ready to soar even higher.
DURING a recent interview, Hong Kong Cantopop star Eason Chan said that L.O.V.E is a new beginning for him, musically at least.
For one, he is not on his own anymore – Chan worked on the album together with the “Duo Band”, the group he toured with on his Duo World Tour from March 2010 to December 2012, with each of the 14 band members contributing a song.
The result is a delightfully listenable album with a variety of musical influences, from blues to reggae, Latin to jazz, and of course, old-school Cantopop.
Opening track Po Huai Wang (Destroyer) gets the album off to a happy, funky start, setting the tone for other songs like Feng Kuang De Peng You (Crazy Friends) and Yu Ni Chang Zai (Always With You).
Most of the songs do tend to be on the slower side though, but even when Chan slows things down on ballads like Hai Li Shui Ren (Sleeping In the Ocean) and Jian Jian (Slowly), there is a lighthearted twinkle to them.
The album, which consists of eight Cantonese songs, two Mandarin songs and one in English, ends on a slightly poignant note with Ke Yi Ke Zai ,a number Chan wrote after the death of musician and Duo band member Ellen Loo, who tragically committed suicide in August.
With all the members of the Duo band coming together in memory of their departed comrade, it’s a poignant and heartwarming song that ends the album perfectly.
While L.O.V.E may not be Chan’s best album ever, it certainly marks a turning point for the singer, musically at least.
Here’s hoping he and the Duo Band decide to keep doing this together.