The Sweet Vandals - The Sweet Vandals (2007)

Madrid isn't the first city that springs to mind when you mention vintage 60s and 70s funk, but this album's opener (I Got You, Man!) is already a club anthem.

There's a lot more of the same here. Recorded in retro purist style with vintage microphones and analogue tape, the Sweet vandals are following the trail blazed by artists like Sharon Jones, Nicole Willis and The New Mastersounds. And they do it pretty damn well.

The band (Jose Angel Herranz on guitar, Santi Martin on bass, Carlos Coupe on Hammond and Javier Gomez on drums) replicate the raw sound and original fire of 60s and 70s funk with wild abandon. Singer Mayka Edjo is Janis Joplin with a Spanish accent, throwing down her improvised vocal lines over the funk with all the wild insouciance of a young Robert Plant.

Songs like You Wanna Be My Lover, You're Getting' It and Do It Right are all in-your-face attitude. This is sweaty dance music first and foremost, though, and the band is less convincing when they go for a big bluesy workout like Beautiful or low-grade porn-movie soundtrack instrumentals like Nite Lites. I'm always happy to hear a new version of Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (especially with the genders reversed) but although originality is not the strong suit here, whenever I hear the line "I'm gonna take you higher" I am tempted to beat those responsible to death with the nearest heavy object.

Flaws aside, though, this is a feisty, spicy bit of retro-funk and a very creditable debut. -- Clare O'Brien