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Kicking off with the single, ‘Hold On’ that features Sarah Scott (separate review HERE) you know you’re up for a real treat with this album

Flevan (aka Nigel Evans) was one of the originals at Tru-Thoughts but his last album was Unfabulous on the leftfield, underground and very excellent Jack To Phono records a couple of years ago. Now when you are a multi-skilled musician who plays guitar, bass and piano among other instruments, mere mortals wonder why you’d bother with DJ/sample based productions at all. Well, last year he felt like a new challenge and joined Brighton band Backini as the bass player. With gigs at Glastonbury Festival, a Maida Vale session for Rob da Bank (he of BBC Radio 1, Sunday Best and Rob da Bank’s A-Z of Festivals: My life of music, mud and mayhem in 26 letters) and with an album recorded at Abbey Road Studios, he was more than up for a album playing live and writing original material; 27 Devils is the mighty fine result

You could split the album 50/50 between tracks with vocals, provided by guest vocalists Sarah Scott and Backini collaborator Shona Foster and the instrumentals.

Of the vocal tracks, apart from ‘Hold On’, ‘More On The Way’ has some great lyrics performed by Ms. Foster whilst the backing sounds like a soulful track by Family/Streetwalkers for those with long memories (well the horns/guitars at least). “the rules that breaks the tears on my pillow, they’ve waged a war with more on the way”. Not to say Ms. Foster does a bad job, but even a aging Roger Chapman could do a hell a version of this?

And then there’s the instrumentals that are worth getting this album for alone. ‘Mad Perks’, ‘Pretty From A Distance’ (hello, what’s that one about?) and the title track all sound glorious songs and ready to bomb the dancefloor.

Sarah Scott returens with a soulful blues ‘On & Out’ and ‘Lay Back’ but I think it’s the instrumentals that are the ones for me, especially the afrobeateaque ‘Hold No Water’, the delicate bass heavy ‘Endless Things’, the funky ‘Mad Perks’, the cinematic broken big horn of ‘Flicker’, the title track and the closing track ‘Neckbone’.

Not that Flevans has had any loss of form, but you can see that a return to Tru-Thoughts with 27 Devils has raised the bars for even his high standards and yet another great album released this week.

Reviewed: Flevans - 27 Devils (Tru Thoughts) Cat. No: TRUCD191 Release date: 18th May 2009
Tracklisting:
1 Hold On featuring Sarah Scott (4:13)
2 Pretty From A Distance (4:33)
3 27 Devils (4:46)
4 More On The Way featuring Shona Foster (4:14)
5 Mad Perks (5:04)
6 On & Out featuring Sarah Scott (5:57)
7 Endless Things (4:58)
8 Flicker (4:36)
9 All To Play For featuring Shona Foster (4:15)
10 Hold No Water (4:23)
11 Lay Back featuring Sarah Scott (4:26)
12 Neckbone (5:58)

Links:
www.flevans.co.uk
www.myspace.com/flevansmusic
www.sweatlaredo.co.uk
www.tru-thoughts.co.uk