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04 April 2004
Joel Virgel, Amour Amer (Electric Monkey)
Is this the new Seal record? Would you be happy if it were? Joel Virgel serves up deflated, internationally flavored R&B that probably goes well with swindling newly widowed women out of their lucre. Amour Amer reeks of blowhard romanticism that gags the listener like a room fogged in cheap cologne. The Calgon beats ask nothing of your attention, slipping off into the background like they have something better to do, suggesting perhaps that you should run along and continue shopping. Virgel's voice never once breaks a wet meat whisper (was this recorded in a library?), raking the entire album with an of out of breath seduction that sounds about as sexy to me as a dry palm on Styrofoam. Few records strike me as burdensome to listen to, but Virgel manages to make music where the creative anemia feels contagious. Amour Amer feels like an album that the Thievery Corporation might make if they were Florida retirees trying to mate Tony Bennett and R. Kelly with the Carnival Cruise line house band. His cover of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" sounds like an elevator music autopsy, leaving the abused remnants of the original lifelessly strewn on its periphery. A few of the songs in French seem to go down a bit easier, but I'm guessing it's only because I couldn't translate the insufferability.
— Terry Sawyer
.: posted by Editor 9:55 AM
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