Soul Express Album Review DONALD McCOLLUM: Canadian Soul Time, 2005 Lose My Kool – Creep – U Don’t Want My Love – Be Thankful For What You’ve Got – You’re My Everything – You’re In My Arms Again – Love Will Come Along – I Wanna Love You – Waiting In Vain – Let’s Groove – I Thought You Were The One – Just Be True I don’t wish to appear unkind to Donald or to Dome, but I really do not know what all the fuss is about this album. I have played through this from start to finish on 4 separate occasions now and really cannot see what many are raving on about. Although Donald is a resident of the Windy City I cannot help but feel that this was recorded somewhere in the UK (yes, I know it was Germany) and as such it leaves me rather cold. The tempo rarely deviates and this is not healthy for Donald who is rather a good vocalist who could do a lot better. I am sure the UK market – and those who rave over the likes of Incognito - will lap this up as it does this sort of thing, and rather this than a lot of the tat out there masquerading as soul today, but for this miserable old hack it just does not cut the mustard. It's not that it's bad, it just doesn’t have that special ingredient. For me there are tracks that are worthwhile, these being the funky "Lose My Kool", the Latin tinged "I Wanna Love You" and the fun 80s stepper "U Don’t Want My Love". There is also an underlying trend on this CD to use a lot of silly, quirky keyboard noises. Why? Sounds rather daft to me, and his take on "Waiting In Vain" will do nothing to me at least as I am not a fan of Reggae or Bob Marley at all. The cover of William DeVaughan’s "Be Thankful For What You’ve Got" suffers with too UK, too street and too full of daft noise effects to be a serious cover of such a classic. "You’re My Everything" isn’t too bad a track, but the Britishness is always lurking under the surface and takes a lot of the gloss away. "Love Will Come Along" adds some fresh air to proceedings with a sort of Koop-ish jazzy feel, but those stupid squeaky rubber duck effects come along and destroy what is a very nice groove for Donald to work with. If they touch those special effects buttons again there will be smacked bottoms all round, I tell you! This destroys what could have been a very strong soulful jazz track. The same fate befalls the potential classy effort "I Thought You Were The One". Soul music and Captain Kremmon really do not mix, guys. Hopefully Donald will allow his talents – great that they are – to work with more some producers in the US without a dumb effects machine. Waste of talent. Not essential when compared to sets by Jeff Hendrick, the Whispers etc. -Barry Towler Other Fresh CD Reviews Albums of the Month in 2006 Albums of the Month in 2005 Albums of the Month in 2004 Albums of the Month in 2003 Albums of the Month in 2002 Albums of the Month in 2001 Albums of the Month in 2000 Albums of the Month in 1999 Albums of the Month in 1998 Albums of the Month in 1997 |