Dalbello - Whomanfoursays (1987)

Tracklist:

01. Gonna Get Close To You (4:29)
02. Devious Nature (4:01)
03. She Pretends (4:31)
04. Wait For An Answer (5:39)
05. Animal (4:01)
06. Cardinal Sin (4:06)
07. Guilty By Association (3:35)
08. Path Of Least Resistance (4:57)
09. Target (My Eyes Are Aimed At You) (6:03)

Whomanfoursays was the result of Dalbello's collaboration with Mick Ronson, who had seen her exceptional talent and persuaded her to give music a second try after her first attempts. The resulting album is stunning for its musical and lyrical depth. Even after two decades, it is still listenable -- which cannot be said for a lot of productions from the '80s with their now quite outdated synthesizer sounds. Sparse but very effective instrumentation, shrewd dynamics ("Gonna Get Close to You"), Dalbello's extraordinary voice (listen how she screams out her emotions in "Wait for an Answer"), witty observations with intelligent lyrics ("Devious Nature"), and the combined multi-instrumental capabilities of Dalbello and Mick Ronson make this album one of the records that will stand out as a very sophisticated non-mainstream rock effort with a poppish flavor. If there is a trace of weakness, it might be "Path of Least Resistance," which never seems to develop the strong focus the other tracks do, but this is only a minor complaint given the quality of the remainder of this record.