| I'm especially proud to see the release of an "official" d�but CD by this powerful blues-rock quartet, even though my 2000 "bootleg" was actually their first release (with Dave Yazusawa on drums and Jeremy Levan on bass) has received much airplay in my household and remains one of my favourites to this day. I've also seen them "live" many times in different venues, and regardless of the number of people in attendance, have always enjoyed their exuberant performance immensely! On Nocturnal, as if they weren't mind-blowing enough as a quartet, Michael Fonfara (Downchild) joins the troupe with his fabulous keyboarding skills, which are given the prominence they deserve in all the right places, a bone of contention with me on many other CDs. On the first track of Nocturnal, I was a bit overwhelmed by the intensity of Anthony Salvatore's lead vocals. Make no mistake about it - he's got lung power to spare, and then some, but he's got a naturally versatile tone to sing either rock or blues (think David Lee Roth or Luther Allison), so the heightened growl in this instance was a bit over the top. Fortunately (or deliberately) the vocal olympics are tempered more evenly throughout the remainder of the CD. While 75% of the tracks are dynamic and stylistically diverse originals composed either individually or in tandem by Anthony Salvatore and Canadian master of the blues lead guitar, Robert Anthony (a.k.a. Rob Tarticchio), the remaining tracks are tribute songs such as "See See Baby" ( Freddie King/Sonny Thompson), "Me and My Guitar" ( L. Russell/C. Blackwell) (a favourite song of the band, both live and on their bootleg), and "How Many More Roads" (Chester Burnett, a.k.a. Howlin' Wolf). The latter displays an awesome, showcase-quality, instrumentation by the entire group! In my humble opinion, Robert Anthony is certainly on an equal par with international counterparts Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and in partnership with Anthony Salvatore, they could well become the next Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee or Mick Jagger and Keith Richard! Gary Boudreau has got to be one of the finest bass players I've ever heard, with his instinctive feel for that instrument's ability to either make or break a band's basic groove. Drummer Rob Randazzo is deservedly "sitting pretty" in this particular group, as many others, with much higher profiles, have tried (and failed) to usurp his position as Coldsweat's "heartbeat" (hey, maybe someday he'll have his own chauffeur), but the guys just love his technique! Michael Fonfara is certainly one of Canada's premier keyboardists (on both piano and organ) and it was quite a coup for Coldsweat to snatch him up for this recording! At their CD release party at Grossman's on April 6, Martin Aucoin (The Lincolns, Penny Skolski) stepped in for Michael, and harmonica player Paul Sweet jammed on a couple of Muddy Waters' tunes with the band - what a wall of sound that was! I doubt very much whether producer Alec Fraser (who also contributes on percussion) had to do much fussing around here, but the end product is something he and the band should be proud of, too! April 2002 |
| COLDSWEAT'S TRIUMPHANT CD RELEASE AT GROSSMAN'S |
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| NOCTURNAL - COLDSWEAT CD Review by Diane Wells |
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