Xavier Rudd – Dark Shades Of Blue

• 20th Aug 2008

The opening song ‘Black Water’ is a very sensational piece of instrumental music. A real tone setter for Xavier Rudd the gutarist and all round experimentalist.

This continues throughout the album, as there are alot of guitar heavy tracks. Vocals also kick in on the second track. And it’s unfortunately so quickly that we discover his shortcomings. It isn’t that he is a bad singer as he clearly has range, and knows how to alter his voice depending on the tone of the song – It is just that he is that much better a guitar player and his voice lets the music down. It may have been better to lay down the track and then to get a better singer to overlay their own voice covering the same intonations he used on his try. It just needs something that little bit more powerful.

And it’s power that is needed to match the music written for this album.