KALO - Wild Change (2017)

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Written by Robert Michaels, posted by blog admin

The blues is alive and well, but many of the best bands still playing electric blues don’t restrict themselves to that alone and need a central selling point. KALO fits the bill. Their eleven song third studio album Wild Change incorporates funk, R&B, and singer/songwriter influences into its bluesy stew and the results are appropriately impressive. They are, likewise, distinguished by the presence of Bat-Or Kalo, a duel threat as both a first rate guitarist with great fluency and originality alongside her astonishing vocal talents. Her voice is flexible enough to inhabit any musical landscape and does so on this album without venturing too far afield of its core strengths. The production plays an important role in this album’s success thanks to the big screen manner it uses to depict the arrangements – they forever teeter on the brink of overwhelming listeners, but never cross that line.

The most successful blues numbers on the album are all nicely positioned in the track listing. “One Mississippi” kicks things off with a lot of gritty, yet finessed, energy while the bucket of blood theatrical fury of barnburners like “Isabel” and the title track help make the album’s first quarter as memorable as anything you’ll hear this year. It’s a true bonanza for guitar lovers. The title track, in particular, solidifies all of the album’s achievements to that point in a performance that seems personal and marvelously impassioned. The one time on Wild Change that they choose to pursue the traditional, slow meditative blues is on “Only Love” and they do the style more than justice. It gives Kalo an opportunity to show us the full soulfulness of her voice and she invests the performance with an emotiveness that any singer will envy. “Free” has some similarities to the blues tunes, but it leans much more in a hard rock direction and ranks as one of the album’s more pile driving, aggressive performances. Kalo is up to the task as she unleashes one of Wild Change’s most incendiary vocals.

“Pay to Play” is probably the most significant stylistic variation you’ll hear on Wild Change. This is an outright funky tune spiked with some sharply presented guitar that, nonetheless, changes gears in the second half and adopts that warm, brown sound we are accustomed to hearing on bluesy numbers. The juxtaposition works quite nicely. “Bad Girl” blasts the audience with a final exhibition of their hard blues chops and Kalo lets loose with another lung buster that sets up the quiet, muted finale of “Calling All Dreamers” in a very lovely light. We needed this song to close out the album and its tenderness is an antidote, of sorts, to the muscular guitar workouts characterizing so much of the release. There’s something for everyone who loves guitar and great songwriting on KALO’s Wild Change.