Whenever there is a new record release coming from the Jazz-Latin-R&B inspired British sensation Matt Bianco, there is always an uplifting mood in the air.
A band that has topped the Top 10 charts of half the world, back in 1984, through the debut album called Whose Side Are You On?, Matt Bianco, originally a trio counting, in its line-up, keyboard player Danny White and vocalists Basia Trzetrzelewska and Mark Reilly, is now left with the sole Reilly running gloriously the band's name, after White and Trzetrzelewska left on their own accord.
Even on his own, Reilly has continued and still does, in these days, to keep on chiselling successful records that have seen Matt Bianco's name surging constantly to international recognition, like Indigo (1988), Gran Via (1995) or the more recent Gravity 2017) and High Anxiety (2020), the latter released as Matt Bianco & The New Collective and an album that our website had the privilege to review too.
Now, after a 5 years absence from releasing studio records, Matt Bianco is now back with a brand new body of work called Masquerader, an album that reflects the core of Matt Bianco’s music, with plenty of uptempo tunes with a distinctive Latin/South American flavour, beautifully arranged by Reilly.
Masquerader is, undoubtedly, an album that allows Mark Reilly's vocals to shine brightly once again in every moment of the record, with the sole exception of the track called Deep Space, where Reilly leaves the vocal duties to the British singer and Matt Bianco’s long time collaborator Betty Black, with equally convincing, strong results.
On this new album, Matt Bianco join forces with another long time friend musician of Reilly, the acclaimed Jazz saxophonist and composer Dave O’Higgins, who not only played beautifully on Masquerader, but also took the co-songwriting duties together with Reilly himself.
Matt Bianco’s new album is a truly apotheosis of joy and positive vibes in its entirety, especially sound wise; from tunes that will not make you step away from the dancefloor like You Talk Too Much, Wanderlust, Playing With Dynamite, the instrumental cracker called Matucada that closes the record and the album's title-track, all songs where uptempo Salsa and Merengue are the driving sonic forces, to songs like A Memory For Lovers and Rectify My Soul, where the aforementioned genres take a more Jazzy treatment to said songs, resulting into a very classy and sophisticated musical mash-up, Masquerader, as a record, never takes the foot out of the accelerator, in terms of song quality, musicianship and vocal delivery, with the latter aspect showing Mark Reilly in very fine form, something that the British singer has kept on delivering album after album, with exceptional standards.
If there has ever been a certainty, within the music business, Masquerader confirms once more Matt Bianco as a music project able to impress both fans and music highly on every record they release, by continously creating new music containing dynamic arrangement and anthemic tunes, all qualities that they have so exquisitely shown not only on Masquerader, but throughout Matt Bianco’s whole career to date. Bravo, Matt Bianco, long may continue your remarkable creativity and musicianship.
Masquerader is out now and it is available to be purchased via Amazon
