• Band / Artist : Sule – mySpace
• Genre : Rock / Pop
• Sample Track Download : Duck and Cover
• Buy CD : N/A
• Buy Digital Download : iTunes
• Rating : 9 out of 10

Sometimes when investigating new artists, what I hear on websites or MySpace sometimes doesn’t fill me with excitement or eagerness. However while my ears aren’t set on fire, something in my gut, tells me to stop and delve a little deeper. This was the case with Montreal, Canada native, Sule, who after I listened to his music on MySpace, enjoyed what I heard, but whether it was the time of day, or the music I’d listened to before hand. my gut instinct was screaming at me to follow up with the artist. This I did and a week or so later, with CD in the player, I was absolutely blown away.

The album opens with “Duck and Cover”, which at first sounds like a pale copy of a Lenny Kravitz track. As the track unfolds though, it smolders and burns. While this track and indeed the whole album has a kind of Lenny Kravitz overtone, the music is sharper and the vocals smoother, without the wailing Kravitz screetch. For me, the album starts proper with “Go On (With Yer Bad Self)”, which has a wonderful acoustic/piano opening, which builds with strings and with a hint of what sounds like a tin whistle, interesting mix of sounds indeed. “Numb” for me should be earmarked as a single, it just has that slow burn start, with killer chorus, that has hit written all over it. The following track “Alive” also is an amazing track, but for different reasons. It has some great lyrics, that roll and flow incredibly well.

I’ve been running Indie Launchpad for nearly 3 years and am still surprised, that I am amazed at the incredible talent that somehow flys below most peoples radars, after all the is the exact reason Indie Launchpad was started. If this were a mainstream artist, I’ve no doubt it would top many charts. There’s a great diversity about this album, but it still hangs together very well. “Mysterious” being a case in point. It’s a more mellow track, but still has that rock overtone. “Simplicity” also has a distinctly different flavour, and is perfectly placed at the centre of the album, as it very much feels like a track to give a brief respite.

I mentioned diversity on this album, and with the track “Into You”, it feels very much like modern jazz, given a rock infusion. The penultimate track “I Wanna Know (Love Stoned Mix)”, is as the title indicates, a remix of a track that appears earlier on the album. There’s a great ethereal quality to this track, which you really experience to the full, by wearing headphones, fantastic stuff. The album starts with “Duck and Cover” and ends with “Dub and Cover” a dub remix of the opener, again taking the album in new directions, which I absolutely love,

Conclusion : A fantastic album, which I’m really thankful to have found. It’s all in here, rock, dub, light and heavy. This is surely an artist destined for greater things. Looking forward to catching him in Ottawa someday.