CASTLE MUSIC

Shalamar - Circumstantial Evidence / Wake Up - The Sound of Los Angeles Records

Released on 1 July 2002, and continuing the Sanctuary anthology with Circumstantial Evidence from 1987 and Wake Up from 1990.

Much of the first album reminds me of Prince or Time or some such thing and as a result it sounds a tad contrived, plus, of course, by this time all three original members had left leaving Delisa Davis, Micki Free and Sidney Justin.

'Circumstantial Evidence' (album and extended version) is a BabyFace and Reid song and is relatively competent. 'Games' I do link and it grooves along in a Prince kind of way

'Love's grown deep' is a forgettable ballad before the tempo is lifted back to the grooving style of the day on 'Playthang' and 'Female', the former being marginally better.

'Born to love' is slightly mellower, slightly haunting and slightly better. 'Worth waitin for' is another ballad with quite a nice falsetto lead.

'Imaginary Love' closes in a mediocre uptempo fashion.

A not too inspiring album but with one or two quite good tracks.

Into the 90's the album 'Wake Up' commences with 'Caution; This love is hot' (album and extended versions included) with a new jack swing vibe. A new era sound but a sound that brought the end to the Shalamar years and this is a far cry from the beginning and middle years. This track is relatively competent with a hook that reminds me of something else that I can't bring to mind right now. There was however so much better stuff around in the early 90's of this ilk.

'Wake Up' contains an almost very nice sample or jazzy break but it doesn't go with it strongly enough. Given that this is the title track it tells that the rest of the album ain't gonna hit home. From contrived disco beats we get contrived New Jack raps.

'Why lead me on' is quite a nice ballad but the lead vocal is not strong enough and Perhaps Howard Hewitt would have given it a better shot. I must say though that it is the ballads that come out best on here with 'All I wanna do' and 'I'll give you love',

'Groove Talk' and 'Come together' are pretty forgettable and the latter is positively awful, but then I ahave never been a fan of this song in any guise.

Neither 'For sure', 'I want U' or 'Pink Box' are strong enough to hit home.

An essential album only if you are completing this, on the whole, excellent retrospective of Shalamar's work.