Singularity
Sydney duo Lo Five – vocalist Tam Morris, the younger brother of Jenny Morris (as a teenager he co-wrote her 1991 hit Break In The Weather) and keyboardist Alan Goodman – try, and fail, to create a compelling modern soul album with their debut, Singularity.
Album opener We Do sets the tone for the album. It’s bouncy, funky beat immediately catches the ear, but becomes monotonous within about 30 seconds, like the many other dull musical arrangements throughout Singularity. Morris’s voice, meanwhile, isn’t suited to soul music, with his vocals falling somewhere between bad cabaret and good karaoke.
Some tracks are downright awful. Funkulele sounds like a Flight Of The Conchords song with its half-rapped, half-sung nonsense verses, George Clinton-esque chorus about artificial intelligence and out-of-nowhere gospel bridge – except it’s not a piss-take.
There are a few promising moments, but not enough to redeem Singularity. Despite its unseemly title, Heavenly Ho is a heartfelt tribute to Amy Winehouse and, interestingly for a self-described soul act, the two songs closest to rock music, Bad News Is Down and Don’t Do That (Get Down), are pretty good. This suggests there could be a future for Lo Five – but it’s certainly not in soul music.
JOSHUA HAYES
