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Bluespeak: The Lounge Collection

Highlights from the recorded output of Bluespeak's smoking selection, 17 'lounge jazz/blues' numbers compiled from previous albums: Dark Blue, The Drinking Set, Late Last Night. Featuring the trademark vocals of Greg Johnson and the, as expected, exemplary musicianship of Tom Ludvigson, Pete Scott and Paul Hewitt. The songs, predominantly co-written by Johnson and Ludvigson, have considerable similarities to Johnson's own material, which is a good thing. The thematic approach of the album is predictable, indicated by song titles such as Drinking Blues, Bad Bad Whiskey and I Belong to the Drinking Set. Listening, it's not hard to conjure up images of the band's hard-gigging history in late-night bars and nightclubs in the early 90s. The enjoyment of this album is only marred, in my view, by an overall slightly dull and muddy sound which is surprising considering the album was mastered at Stebbings. Fix yourself a cognac or single malt, sit back and enjoy. Out on Pagan via EMI.

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