Kokoroko is more of a live band, but the melodies on this long-awaited debut are sometimes heavenly beautiful ★★★☆☆

It was a long wait for the debut of the London band Kokoroko. The afrobeat collective has been high in the well-known rankings of ‘bands to keep an eye on’ for years, but that album never came out.

Kokoroko is primarily a live spectacle, they have already seen and heard at a show in Groningen, at Eurosonic Noorderslag. Nigerian jazz takes on an enormous dynamic on stage thanks to the musical charisma of the three brass-blowing women, with trumpeter and bandleader Sheila Maurice-Grey as the booster and sax (Cassie Kinoshi) and trombone (Richie Seivwright) in her wake.

on Could We Be More the sound is less pronounced, and that is initially a bit disappointing. Kokoroko never lets the horns go into the red, and the band sound is on the oily side. But that also brings extra attention to the flowing and sometimes heavenly melodies. The solos of sax and trombone in slightly psychedelic Ewà Inú glide like will-o’-the-wisps through a forest of bumpy basslines and percussion, and into the beautiful Age of Descent the horns push in soft unison against sparkling guitars, which are also somewhat misted by the distortion effects.

Strangely enough, especially in the vocal parts, performed by the horn section, there is some sluggishness. The number Those Good Times for example is a slightly too meaningless R&B anthem, in which it is difficult to hold the attention. Fortunately, the base brass makes in the combative war dance the ears awake again.

It’s time for some new live shows from this band. Fortunately, the company will be in the country next month, at the Into the Great Wide Open festival on Vlieland and at the Annabel stage in Rotterdam.