Wall Of Soul

The formula of duos with an instrumentalist wonk guy and a passionate female singer is not a new one, so what matters is what is done with that combination. In the case of Finnish act Spyritual, the result on their debut Wall of Soul is often inviting. It calls to mind the murky soul and jazz undertow of acts like Portishead and Lamb's first album without specifically resembling either. The two performers created an okay release pitched somewhere between late Talk Talk and prime Chet Baker, albeit with a female singer. Singer Terhi Koivisto's tones are of the cool, late evening nightclub variety, fragile without being weak, while Juha Tuukkannen throughout found his focus with musical elements that match Koivisto's voice, but are spiked with tones and beats that suggest a restrained futurism. A good number of songs are instrumentals, which allow Tuukkannen (writer of nearly all the songs on his own) to fully indulge both his sonic toys and the help of collaborators with generally enjoyable results, as on "The Way I Play." The string-laden "Offlune Soulseeds" tips its hat to John Barry-style cinematic tension with a steady percussion clip set against a moody keyboard melody, while "Aquabella" has an almost jaunty beat below the easygoing piano and horns. The downside to the album is that nothing is quite a standout track, which leads everything to blend in with each other more as the album comes on. What starts off reasonably fresh ends up resembling everything else on the disc by the end. Still, there have been worse debuts, and perhaps more time and experience will result in something more involving start to finish in the future.