Dois Selos e um Carimbo

How can you top a debut album that has spent over 100 weeks in the Portuguese charts, powered by the rare ability to put an entire nation in front of the mirror and make them smile at themselves without embarrassment, and laugh without scorn? You just can’t. And Deolinda, obviously, couldn’t either. But they did the next best thing and delivered the greatest inferior album of all time – which went straight to number one in the Portuguese charts. But what's so great about a second-best album, you might ask? Well, this one works like a mirage – it's the initial feeling you get when listening to Dois Selos e umCarimbo if you were madly in love with Canção ao Lado. It lacks the surprise factor, it doesn’t catch you off-guard, but gradually that feeling disappears and you fall in love with it just as badly as you did with the first album.

Somehow, Dois Selos e um Carimbo works like the long-lost twin that charms his way into the last episode of every Mexican soap opera. Production-wise, the album shows a more resourceful band, fine-tuning the tiny details that make a huge song. The reassuring part is that Deolinda haven’t forgotten how to remind the Portuguese people of their idiosyncrasies (the disorientation we feel when we don’t have anything to whine about, or the way Spain is our favourite scapegoat for every problem) and they still manage to make irresistible pop songs about rural Portuguese life and traditions. It doesn’t quite hit the bull's-eye but it comes very close.