I’m very happy to have received the first review of my recently finished second album from the highly regarded Hooked on Music website in Germany.
Here is the link and, for those who can’t understand German, the English translation below, courtesy of my friends Rene and Gudi Bee.
A big thanks to Frank Ipach for the kind words.
http://www.hooked-on-music.de/CD-Reviews3/Dan_Raza/Two.html?band_id=8969
“Although the spirit of the long-dead British melancholic Nick Drake is running through Dan Raza’s body and is instrumental in the folk and roots singer-songwriter art of the young guitarist and singer. The early 30-year-old Mr. Raza was much stronger, more determined than the very introverted Nick Drake, who had finally disappeared in November 1974 under unexplained circumstances.
Whoever wants to make a half-sounding name in the Folk & Roots segment in the overpopulated Music-Biz, must not only have great talent, a sympathetic or extremely distinctive voice, an appealing appearance and gripping songs, but above all lots of luck in the right place at the right time. The old saying is true again and again.
Dan Raza, who has been driving the slow, hard road to the top through British and European clubs and pubs for over a decade, brings all of the above attributes with him, and he goes unchecked to the recognition he deserves.
Great names like Neil Young have already noted his extraordinary talent. Raza opened concerts for established artists such as Joan Armatrading, Mary Gauthier, Slaid Cleaves, and Badly Drawn Boy. With his debut album, which was produced by Charlie Hart (Ronnie Lane, Ian Dury, Eric Clapton) from 2012, Raza nevertheless had enough effect to keep him on track.
This is good and praiseworthy, because otherwise his fans and those who want to be will not be able to enjoy his second album again equipped with exquisite musicians. If you like musicians like keyboard player Geraint Watkins, Pedal Steeler BJ Cole and flutist Frank Mead, to name only the most illustrious, you should be sure to have put your songs in folk-experienced and competent hands.
Raza’s “Two” titled work captivates by mature craftsmanship, Dan’s soft and pleasant tenor voice and his predominantly acoustic orientation,
along with folkloristic instrumentation such as flute, mandolin, bouzouki, banjo and accordion. Razas songs develop their lovely and rural inspired charm mostly at second and third listening. Classics like “Midnight And The Wine,” which sounds like a random meeting of Gram Parsons and Ryan Adams, or a sentimental affecting song like “Still Can not Believe That You’re Gone,” is the voice of Nick Drake’s tears With Paul Simon’s constancy, more sustained in the ears than expected.
Cheerful song gems like “Do not Shoot The Stars Down” or the sentimental “Old Ways” for example bring to mind Van Morrison’s intense down-to-earthness. The irresistibly joyous “Drifting” and “Payday”, inspired by Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 spirit, could have made into one of the stage hits of the Irish Hothouse Flowers in the late eighties.
The sympathic and undaunted songwriter Dan Raza presents with “Two” again a promising and gratifyingly mature work, which dares to defy the superficiality and hypocrisy of today’s music-biz and put on profound song-art, which many Folk & Roots fans should like. Dan and his band fulfill the high quality requirements. And even if this does not always seem to be sufficient today, the fresh blood of the unyielding artist still flows in Raza and mixes with the spirits of the past.”