MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: DAVID MYLES - REAL LOVE

My first thought on hearing the lead track Night & Day was wondering what kind of effect producer Daniel Ledwell had used on Myles' voice to make him sound like a vintage rockabilly singer. It turns out, apart from a little reverb, he used nothing. That's because Myles, after a little vocal work on his tired pipes (he tours constantly), he has returned to his more natural range, which he used way back on his first recordings. He's able to croon almost Elvis-like on some low tones, as the Myles band grooves semi-acoustically on that cut and the title track, clearly influenced by late '50's singers and production.

This isn't a genre celebration though. Cut three, Night After Night, introduces a noir-orchestral sound, complete with Kinley Dowling's strings, a mysterious mood, a pulsing R'n'B chorus and the big backing voices of Reeny and Mahalia Smith. Knock Out has the sly Mussel Shoals country-soul sound, spare and all groove. If You Want Tonight could have been cooked up at a cowboy campfire, or the lead singer of a doo-wop group's solo number underneath the streetlight.

It's retro but it's not, because there's such a huge mix of styles, mostly old dogs, but a few new tricks too. Myles has grabbed bits and pieces from favourite records and performers, mostly '50's and early '60's, from all over the pop spectrum of that day, and used them at will, so that the influences are never really singular and are hard to identify. Meanwhile, the lyrics are mostly timeless, but if anything, are more modern. In the song Stupid, he asks "If you met Mike Tyson, would you try to start a fight?" In the end, it's simply a reflection of Myles, an old soul in a handsome new suit.