The Beat Surrender

The timing of this landing on my doormat for review couldn’t have been better really as it was only the other day that I was having a conversation with a lad at work who is in a band around the merits of session musicians.

They do of course provide a vital service in the music industry and many established artists wouldn’t be able to record or tour without them, they are the ultimate professsionals and in many ways are completely unsung heroes who happily get on with things behind the scenes or further back onstage, for far less reward than their more illustrious stars that they are supporting.

Those are the major plus points to session musicians of course, but the main point of our discussion was around how they perform when they step out into the limelight themselves and how they can be compared to another band that has grown musically together.

One thing we did agree on was that while they were great musicians, they tend to be so trained, so versed in playuing things a certain way that they end up almost being too profesional and too polished, to the point that a lot of soul is lost from the music, if you want an example then look no further than The Feeling who all cut their cloth as sessions guys and now make some of the most polished, yet bland music around.

The Allstars Collective are as the name suggests, session musicians who have worked with some of the very top names in the music industry, unfortunately their album All About The Music proves the point i’ve just been making. Technically it’s brilliant and not a single note sounds out of place, what it lacks though in the main for me is character and in some places lyric writing that is personal and from the heart.

It opens well enough with the soulful Sometimes, Satisfied has a feel of Soul II Soul about it and Treading Water could have been lifted off of a Brand New Heavies album. The star of the show though is not surprisingly the brilliant title track that features the not inconsiderable vocal talents of Jocelyn Brown, she delivers a trademark punch to the vocals showing how it should be done.

For all these successes though on the album you have any number of disappointing tracks to match them, On My Mind sounds like UB40, Star has the lyrics “You’re a star and you shine so bright, bring light into my heart” they are bad enough but the tone they are delivered in suggests anything but real emotion.

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