Albums of the Year # 129 Gabriels - Angels & Queens

I've just had a very special weekend in Nottingham. Seeing best friends of a lifetime. A couple of people who I met in Warsaw almost thirty years ago, bonded with immediately in a special way and have been very special to me ever since.

It's great being in the company of people like this. You almost immediately find yourself  entirely comfortable in their company once again. You can shed your woes and cares and be yourself once more with them. This happened once more during the last 48 hours.

Walter, (one of this pair, the one I stay with), and I bond particularly over music. We have compatible taste although he tends slightly more to things that will make you want to dance than I do while I gravitate rather to pale types strumming guitars. It's never a major distinction. We enjoy listening to stuff together. 

One of our rituals, when we spend a weekend together is to go and visit Nottingham's Rough Trade store together. Rough Trade is always the king of record shops and visiting one a proper treat for the likes of Walter and I. Time spend browsing its racks are pockets of escape from whatever might be troubling us.

On Saturday we had twenty five minutes in their with American soul diva Gabriels and his debut album Angels & Queens. It's a compilation of tracks that have already been released and as such doesn't  entirely cohere as a statement of arrival. A  slow burner to some degree, taking a few tracks before it arrives at its velvety core and makes you realise you're in the company of a truly great voice by reminding you of the way you feel when you're listening to Nina Simone. He's versatile too, covering impressive ground in terms of the soul pantheon. It's clear the man is being packaged and positioned for stardom. At the moment his greatness is evident but not entirely evident I'd say. Impressive as much of this album is

So not his masterpiece. There's a snippet of the schmaltzy Broadway classic Memories which turned me right off. How could he!!! Gabriels time will come. Angels & Queens acts as a chocolate box entre. Feast on Green Triangles leave the Toffee Fingers and wait for what he comes up with next. There's plenty to luxuriate in but he isn't the finished article just yet and needs to work a bit on his quality control.