Outras Histórias

The star of Deolinda's fourth studio album, Outras Histórias (Other Stories), is unquestionably Ana Bacalhau, whose warm, effortless vocals captivate the listener through the good tracks, and keep you hanging on through a few middling ones.

Deolinda are at their best when things are kept simple. The opening track, ‘Bons Dias’, is an acoustic duet between Bacalhau's velvety voice and some deft guitar playing, and it establishes an easy-going vibe. Perhaps the difficulty thereafter is how to create variety across the 15 songs in order to avoid too much of a good thing. The sixth track, ‘Desavindos’, introduces guest performer Manel Cruz; it's not exactly Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, but Cruz's world-weary voice is a good foil for Bacalhau's and the backing strings work well. ‘Canção Aranha’ ups the tempo and has a distinctly Brazilian swing to it.

Much less successful, however, is ‘Nunca é Tarde’, which is weighed down by a drone of strings that crescendo into a wall of dissonance. It's a heavy-handed compositional affectation that makes you yearn for a return to the bare essentials with which the album opened.