Suddenly this electric guitar appears in “Young Love And Laughter” and it actually dares to make a bit of noise and crack a little atonally, but then the song fades out quickly, as if it needed to be protected from too much noise. No, YOUR PICTURE is one thing above all: very harmonious. The Sha La This is a project by the Schalda family of musicians, but above all father Bill and his three sons Paul, Will and Carmine are a singing, feel-good team.
The four are and have been active in various projects (Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Swivs, Paul & The Tall Trees), together they take Papa’s past in the Brooklyn doo-wop group The Montereys and fuse it with not much more modern ideas from Sixties soul and Laurel Canyon.
In terms of content, YOUR PICTURE – like the debut album LOVE IN THE WIND from 2018, which was intended as a one-off project – has exactly three themes: young love, old love and eternal love. Bill Schalda remembers how he met his wife Linda, how they found each other, lost each other and found each other again. On the back of the lyric sheet is a youthful picture of the couple on the beach, and the vocal harmonies reflect an entire life together. It’s cheesy, of course, but also extremely disarming in its simple romanticism.
This review appears in Musikexpress 1/2026.