Artist: Roussos, Demis
Label: Discograph
Release: 2009
Running time: 37.50
Rating: 4/5
Demis Roussos can boast a solid 40-plus-year music career. It took the Egypt-born son of Greek parents on a hand-picked tour of the charms of all kinds of genre shades, from pop, folk, soul and blues to some serious rattling around with the cult prog rockers Aphrodite’s Child. Whatever nonsense he’s been up to, Roussos has always known how to wow us with his different take on music. With the man’s creative wheel turning tirelessly, that approach has always been a guarantee of innovation against the provincialism of everyday music.
Roussos’s freshly baked album (his first studio release since 1998) has plenty to offer, especially if you can handle the uncouth growl of a senile old man. At first listen, his voice sounds like the busted mating call of an unshaven, slightly smelly pervert in the autumn of his life. Demis doesn’t go looking for alibis for what he does, and he sure isn’t asking forgiveness from airheads. It feels like he’s doing it all in passing, by instinct, as he sniffs around the roots of soul at his leisure. Demis is first and foremost a vocal album. On the wings of a tangible vocal abstraction, it crosses all sorts of expressive elements, mainly soul with a pinch of blues sprinkled in here and there. The result is an emotionally turbulent journey with fresh-smelling, inventively built musical puzzles on offer. The coarse rasp of Demis’s voice gives the very simply staked-out songs unexpected dimensions, and it also adds a heaping helping of unpredictability to the album’s character. The typical whirlwind vocal acrobatics, whose main job is to create an impression of emotional turmoil straight out of Cocker’s playbook, are not in short supply. Demis’s nicely placed voice impresses with its flexibility, depth, beauty and caricatured contortion all at once.
Demis Roussos is one of those funny birds whose next move is pretty much impossible to predict. The old guy slyly puts his seeming bookishness to work for him just about every time it looks like we’ve got him “figured out to the last detail”. Roussos wins us over with a vocal flexibility and depth that make him an excellent mentor, getting the traditional and the modern to see eye to eye. A nice example of the two living in symbiosis is the organ-driven blues-rock assault Spoiled Brat, crossed with accessible alternative flavors, which also hit the senses in the cheeky execution of What They Say. Demis’s idiosyncratic, strongly characterized vocals are the main engine behind all of these sparkling genre experiments. With I’ll Be Home, the old boy sinks into melancholy and soft soul sounds in earnest for the first time. Love Is is a kind of soul preemie, backed by a thick layer of silky Hammond and accompanied by textbook orchestral arrangements that put the cherry on top of the song’s ambient feel. Roussos wins plenty of sympathy with the rock stampede Hit Me, along with On My Pillow and the likable Hello, Hello, by far the liveliest moment on the album. The lively contrast in Demis Roussos’s musical expression is best reflected in the record’s two closing pieces. One is the spiritual, acoustic descent through the serene brightness of Help Me. Its worthy challenger in the finale is a kitschy vocal burlesque with the telling title Who Gives a Fuck!
Although at first glance Demis looks like just another in a series of studio products, with which Roussos flags his inability to adapt to modern musical standards, it has to be said that he shows a heaping helping of understanding for the guiding principles of soul and blues here. In fact, Roussos has gone even a step further. He has built on the traditional musical frameworks with unique expressive touches, and they’ve given those genres’ withered features back their freshness and sparkle of life.
Lineup
Demis Roussos: vocals
Nicholas Ryness-Hirsch: guitar
Lewis Reuben Wharton: bass
Jessica Lauren: keyboards
Virgil Howe: drums
Production
Marc di Domenico
Tracklist
1. September (I’m On My Way)
2. On MY Pillow
3. Love Is
4. What They Say
5. Hello, Hello
6. Hit Me
7. I’ll Be Home
8. Spoiled Brat
9. Help Me
10. Who Gives a Fuck
