Customer Reviews

New Wave

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As far as I can tell the band Soul Family Sensation is the same band Sensation that came out with the albumn Burger Habit back in 1994. If you like Aztec Camera, Frazier Chorus, The Lotus Eaters and the like this record is for you. I found it used at a record store in Las Vegas and I havent been able to stop listening to it. The standout track is the Sheffield Song. If you like this record you also need to own Burger Habit the albumn by the band Sensation which is the same like I mentioned earlier. Both of these records are smoooooth.

13 great songs, soulful, yet dance friendly jams, if you like M people or C+C Music Factory, you would probably like this one. I can drag this out from time to time and find myself listening to it over and over for days, the smooth vocals, mellow, yet upbeat music, blend into a wonderful experience

I came accross this album by accident back in the early nineties when the female vocalist, Jhelissa Anderson (younger sister of the more famous but not as cute Carleen) was guesting with rock/dance crossover act The Shamen, who were then huge in the UK. Unfortunately, The Shamen only used Jhelissa on two of their singles (the fools - she was easily the best slunding and best looking of their female guest singers over the years), so if you enjoyed their 'Love Sex Intelligence' and 'Phorever People', then this album is for you.
While Jhelissa really sings out in a fulsome style with the Shamen, she tends to be a bit laid-back jazzy on her own records and when guesting (such as on Courtney Pines 'Underground'). While she doesn't really belt it out on 'New Wave', she does give it some. Her vocals are present on the following tracks - 'This Perfect Life', 'I don't even know if I should call you baby', 'Messed Up & Blue', 'Who Ever Said ?', 'Other Stuff' and 'All Accross The Network'. The first and last of these are particularly strong, with lyrics that are far better than those of the average soul/electronica/rnb type record of the time (or of any time for that matter).
The music is smooth, lush, very keyboardy but with no irritating raps or frantic beats-for-the-sake-of-beats (yeah, you guesssed it, I normally hate dance records). In fact, I can imagine Japan circa 1979/80 covering 'All Accross The Network'...
I've never come accross any other records by SFS but there is an album called 'Burger Habit' by a band with the same name -does anyone know if this is the same band ? If so, I'd only suggest buying it if it features Jhelissa as the male vocalist who takes the other songs on 'new Wave' just isn't up to it (sorry mate !).
Jhelissa has become a hard-to-spot presence (despite 2 solo albums on which she didn't play to her strength as a good, potentially very commercial pop singer) apart from the odd session appearance (e.g. on Bryan Ferry's 'Chain Reaction' from 'Mamouna'.
If you like quality early nineties soul, without the kind of stupid warbling singers like Maria Carey and every other black female vocalist you hear goes for, check out 'New Wave'.