Since it has been 9 years since Riki Michele's last release One Moment Please, the question raised is has it been worth the wait. The answer is a resounding yes, absolutely yes. Produced, recorded, and mixed by Julian Kindred this is a perfect album, there is not one thing wrong with it. The singing, playing, writing, everything is right on track. Michele and Julian have assembled some of the best players in music today, Steve Hindalong, Tim Chandler, Marc Byrd and David Kindred among others all turn in fine performances. Back on the old American Bandstand kids would rate a record by telling Dick Clark, I'll give it a 10, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it. This album rates a 10 all the way around. Now, watching me dance is an experience that has brought fits of laughter to more than one person, but I can picture in my mind throngs of kids dancing to this entire project with wild abandon. It has the kind of vibe that forces you to want to move around.
Since it has been 9 years since her last release a number of younger listeners might not be familiar with her work as a solo artist or as the backing vocalist and whirling dervish for the "World's Coolest Band", Adam Again. I will say without hesitation that Riki Michele is one of my three favorite female vocalists, the other two being Máire Brennan and Joanne Hogg. Michele has a voice that is pure, sweet and sensual all at the same time. She has written or co-written every song on the album and her talent as a writer is just as profound as her vocal abilities. I assume that by the time this album hits the stores it will have been picked up by one of the big boys but in the meantime make this album your first purchase of 2002. Check out her web site at www.rikimichele.com.
5 tocks
Other coverage for this album
The Phantom Tollbooth 2002Reviewed by Dr. Bruce L. ThiessenAllow me to take you on a guided tour of Riki Michele's 12-room haunted mansion. For those who have never paid a visit to Surround Me, I'm referring to her new CD. Without a doubt, this is the antithesis of No Doubt's Rock Steady (arguably the most fun anyone has had on an album since the B-52s released Rock Lobster). Enter at your own risk. There is no welcome mat or doorbell at this mansion.…Opus 2002Reviewed by Jason MoreheadThere's always that one album I pick up at Cornerstone that somehow seems to dominate my post-Cornerstone listening. A few years ago it was Pedro the Lion's It's Hard To Find A Friend, the year after Unwed Sailor's Firecracker EP. This year, however, it's Surround Me, a CD that sounds decidedly at odds with much of the stuff I heard this year. And, as things like this usually go, it was all an…Similar sounding releases
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