Welcome comeback.
In Belgium La Scott is a grand lady, despite the fact that her previous CD was released in 1999 and disappointed on top of that. On it, she joined the pack of widely spread-out guitar rockers too desperately, although occasionally there were songs that proved her reputation.
Apparently she has had enough of volume pur sang, because her fifth CD containing eleven songs is strikingly modest musically. In excellent songs her live band plays with a lot of feeling, while Paul van Bruystegem’s poised guitar solos continually serve Scott’s emotions.
Her rootsy produced pop is a mix of gospel, soul and rhythm ’n blues, sometimes merged with sparingly applied electronic effects, whereas her sensitive voice expresses emotions in the way she patented. Often worked up and supported by soulful background singers, Scott gets all the room from regular producer Michel Gudanski to whisper and sing at the top of her voice in ballads and medium tempo songs. In them, she still sings about both romantic and fysical desires, and that way her nine (sometimes partially) own songs, but even Nights In White Satin from the Moody Blues, become the personal statements of a musically purified world singer.
The Alabama born Scott also sings two duets with a sharp edge: with Paul Personne and with background singer Gael. They link up well with the other songs, because in them Scott neither denies her American background nor her French-speaking surroundings. The result is craftmanship in a great tradition.
***1/2
Published on www.popmagazineheaven.nl together with Heaven no. 23, March – April 2003/no. 2