Bob Malone
Album: Mojo EP
Label: Delta Moon
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.bobmalone.com/

Bob Malone is first and foremost presented as an excellent keyboard player and also as a fantastic performer on his Mojo EP. When listening I kept thinking he would be great live. The EP is coherent in consisting of mostly up-beat, well arranged tracks with lots of keyboard solos, and some interesting bits and pieces like laughter or funny comments e.g. at the end of the first track. The whole EP is blues driven and also quite rocky. Only two songs, Hard Times and Paris, are taken a bit slower and it does the EP good to calm down a bit at times. But even when talking about hard times in the third track you can't avoid feeling that in Bob Malone' world of music nothing is taken really heavy.

The piano solo at least radiates a relaxed happiness all the way through, only the guitar solo maybe transports some suffering. It's as if even hard times are somehow fun for Bob Malone who claims nobody knows hard times better than himself. Only in the next song, I'm not fine, Malone tells us about not feeling well and shows that he is not prepared to pretend he would. I really like the line "No! I'm not fine, thanks for asking." It sort of criticizes the Anglo-American habit of having to pretend at least some happiness. Paris, again, a bit quieter, a fine waltz with a lovely accordion pointing to the street music of Paris, is a sentimental but still convincing song about loneliness and longing, only wanting to get home to his love. With Rage&Cigarettes the EP ends like it started: up-beat, lively and enjoyable.

Dagmar Brudnitzki