Starlite Campbell band - The Language of Curiosity - 10 track CD
English husband and wife blues team Suzy Starlite and Simon Campbell have moved from Spain back to the UK for their
2nd album while evolving stylistically. Simon kicks in with the assertive and emotional “Distant Land.” The 12 bars are still there, but he’s really smokin’. They channel their inner Stones on the intro of “Gaslight” and let the boogie-woogie piano fill in a few gaps for a fine all-rounder of a song.
The twosome duet on title track with absolute perfection and the infectious melody is driven by a relentless beat until they decide to come in for a soft landing. Campbell gets all sentimental for “Bad Sign” and hits a lot of highs in the process. Suzy pipes in around the middle until the Spanish guitars throw you for a loop. A Hammond organ provides the backdrop for the slower sentimental “Take Time To Grow Old,” which sounds like good advice.
They rock out for “Said So” which has a kinks inspired riff, as interpreted by Deep Purple, until the psych middle eight pulls the rug out from underneath you and transports you on the next trip. The prog bands in the 1970s didn’t do it with this much expertise. The bucolic/acoustic yet lush, “It Ain’t Right” gives you a bit of respite courtesy of Starlite yet still has loads of little studio and instrumental touches to give you something to wonder at.
We’ve had just about everything else so far, so the little countrified blues barroom ditty “Stone Cold Crazy” provides with the next musical adventure. Campbell gets all deep for the slow ballad like “Lay It Out On Me,” as the lead guitar work shows some Pink Floyd, Dark Side Of The Moon magic.
Suzy gets experimental on the nearly New Wave intro of “Ride On Cowboy” which is a much poppier kind of blues, perhaps almost Fleetwood Mac territory in places. Simon really rips on the solo while the subliminal funk takes us back to 1970s Studio 54.
What a range. You’ve been taken on a magic carpet ride.
Gecko, Metronome Magazine