Quite possibly Roomful’s best CD since joining the Alligator family in 2003
5
By tbluesh2
These swinging and swaying 12 songs will put you “in the mood” from start to finish. Sure, they are all cover songs taken from the band’s extensive repertoire, but you’ll have to be a musicologist to recognize them.
This 40-minute disc features new bass player John Turner and new trumpeter Doug Woolverton, but the most obvious newcomer is singer Phil Pemberton. His huge voice is a mix between Curtis Salgado, Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris, and Big Joe Turner. Pemberton comes across as if he has been the band’s main vocal and focal point for several years. His emotive vocals will have you personally experiencing the discomfort of the main character’s loneliness on Ain’t Nothin’ Happenin’. The New Orleans sounding Come On Home reveals Pemberton can reverberate as strong and loud as the band’s stomping three-piece horn section. Time Brings About A Change is a ballad which allows the flamboyant Pemberton to stretch his multi octave and ultra-expressive vocals.
Romping horns rumble and rattle on That’s A Pretty Good Love, where Chris Vachon’s enthusiastic guitar riffs are at the center of the song. In fact, Vachon is given more opportunity than in the past to showcase what he can do with six strings, e.g., Win With Me, Baby throughout the disc.
The CD’s strength, and in fact the eight-member group’s greatest asset, is how well the band performs as a cohesive unit. Throughout, the horns hop, the keyboards sway, the vocals enthuse, the guitar rocks, and the band jumps. Roomful’s signature sound runs rampant on Hook, Line & Sinker which plays like a tribute to the best swinging tunes from the ’40s and ’50s. Every song is good, but when those songs are performed by this venerable band, the combined outcome is a transcended musical experience that is both nostalgic and avant-garde at the same time.
A new highlight for a veteran band
4
By Frank57
This is a wonderful selection of classics and near-classics. Lots of great singing, very strong musicianship, and most of all, tons of fun.
A highlight is “Time Brings About a Change,” a slow-tempo soulful thing in which Phil Pemberton’s supple voice gives the band’s great musicians enough room to make this tune a sweet experience for every second. Every solo and every fill in this song is a pleasure to behold. Other favorites are the toe-tapping “She Walks Right in,” a frenetic “Gate Walks to the Board,” and a driving “It.” But in truth, the weaker songs are so only in comparison; there are no clunkers here.
For veteran Roomful fans, Pemberton’s high range may take some getting used to. but he’s definitely got the chops to pull it off. The band is in great form, and it all works - here on the album, as well as in concert.
