Single Review: Texas – ‘The Conversation’
3 min readTexas, one of Scotland’s most successful musical exports, return this month with their first single as a band in eight years, The Conversation.
With an album also titled The Conversation having its final touches applied before its May 20th release, the song acts as the records lead single, teasing us with the thick Americana lashings that this track boasts.
Texas have had a career spanning almost 30 years and in their time have secured a string of chart placing hit singles that have included their international breakthrough, I Don’t Want A Lover, Once In A Lifetime, Summer Son, Black Eyed-Boy and the bands mammoth signature hit, Say What You Want from the their most successful record to date, the number one 1997 studio album, White On Blonde.
The bands last record, Red Book, was released back in 2005 and was the last release for Texas until now. Red Book paved the way for front woman Sharleen Spiteri’s solo career which offered us the fantastic debut collection, Melody as well as its follow-up, the film song covers collection, The Movie Songbook.
With the door shut firmly on a hiatus that has lasted such a lengthy period, we were really excited to have Texas back with such a phenomenal song like The Conversation.
The track opens with a strong southern lick guitar riff, cracking open a mid-tempo nugget of pure Texas gold. The momentum holds steady throughout its entirely while the instrumentation, though quite stripped back and minimalistic when you compare it to previous singles by the band within the past 15 years, allows Sharleen to drive through the single with precision and a warmth we have missed in the years we have waited for Texas to return.
The vocals that are offered by Sharleen are of the same high standard as previous Texas singles with the front woman retaining the same distinctive tones and vocal inflections that we have been offered on previous hits, something that makes Texas recordings feel fresh yet still very familiar and comforting.
Texas have been absent as a unit for almost a decade and that would be the demise of most bands, however, with such a powerful and confident track like The Conversation it would be fairly safe to say that the bands hiatus is what will soon be forgotten.
The Conversation is just another reason why Texas remain such a popular and acclaimed act after almost 30 years doing what they do so spectacularly well.
Buy ‘Texas – The Conversation (single)’ from Amazon
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