Artist: Matchedash Parish
Album: Saturday Night
Label: Make It Real Records
Release Date: 10.30.2019
Saturday Night is an excellent ten-track release from Canada, a band of top Canadian session musicians who evidently have a love of good, old-fashioned soul music. With a full-throated, twelve-piece outfit, horns blast out at every turn while vocals are raucous and raw at times and softly sensual at others. Coming cold to this release, it would be all too easy to think it was a Memphis soul recording rather than a Canadian band with a clear aim and admiration for the Southern soul genre.
Any band prepared to try their hand at a Beatles cover runs the inherent risk of coming perilously close to failure, but Matchedash Parish pulls it off with complete ease in a gospel-drenched take of the classic Lennon-McCartney number, Lady Madonna, in many ways a stand-out cut that highlights the bands confidence and evident talent. Indeed, the remainder of the tracks come from the band itself, revealing a genuine musical strength and songwriting ability that simply sparkles throughout.
Saturday Night is that deceptively simple thing—a damn fine release jam-packed with toe-tapping, get-up-and-dance music, never a bad thing, and something that’s always welcome. Anyone with a love of traditional outhern soul music, that standard Memphis or Stax sound, will find more than enough to satisfy their musical desires and demands with this offering. Matchedash Parish is a band worth discovering and this an album well worth a listen or two. Great music from an unexpected source, Saturday Night is a surprising and pleasing winner for sure.
—Iain Patience
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