Caroline Sullivan 

Imelda May: Tribal review – fresh, ferocious rockabilly that feels alive and compelling

Imelda May makes a virtue of staying outside the mainstream on her latest set of ravenous rockabilly hits, writes Caroline Sullivan
  
  

Imelda May
Rockabilly, burlesque and street-corner sassiness … Imelda May. Photograph: Barry Mc Call Photograph: Barry Mc Call/PR

Dubliner Imelda May has done handsomely out of planting herself at the junction where rockabilly, burlesque and street-corner sassiness meet, and her fourth album doesn't tinker with the recipe. There's no need: Tribal's title track, in fact, alludes to the pleasures of existing outside music's mainstream. In May's hands, rockabilly is a feral form, vitally alive and compelling. When she really gets her teeth into a song, it's impossible not to be swept away by the whirlwind of pounding percussion, rootsy guitar and ravenous vocals – the two opening tracks are a lesson in ferocity. (And the second, Wild Woman, an essay in primal female desire: "I knew a girl once upon a time/ She grew into a werewolf/ That monster was all mine/ She was incarcerated inside my skin"). The real stunners, though, are the slow-burners: Gypsy in Me and Wicked Way are nuanced blues numbers, the latter made deliciously sleazy by B-movie trumpet fills; the delicacy of Little Pixie, inspired by first-time motherhood, is charming rather than sickly. This album is no time capsule; it's fresh and bracing.

 

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