The music found on Faris Nourallah’s new album Problematico fills the listener with a mix of the familiar and the alien.  You’ll find that each song has pop hooks that fall like candy from a heart shaped piñata – each new melody a sticky sweet guilty pleasure.  As you continue to listen it seems this is music designed for some mythical party thrown in honor of Nourallah’s passions and lost loves. Just like Nourallah’s previous release I Love Faris each track oozes with the heartfelt sincerity of a man alone. 

At times it seems that Faris is a drunken tourist in our world, singing out to us, thick and warm, not knowing that his songs course with a blood sweeter and more generous than many of us are likely to know in our lifetime.  In Faris’ world, he is the sun and each new song another planet swirling around him.  As such, some are cold, blue, and distant, while others swirl with inviting and fantastic colors and textures.  The purity and newness he delivers seems like something leftover from childhood, some basic piece of the human core so many of us lose touch with as we grow increasingly consumed by the daily grind.

The opening track “You’ve Got It Made,” is steeped in the head bobbing grooves and rich pop sensibilities of decades ago.  Alternately, tracks such as “Start A Revolution” resonate and linger like a classic arena-rock anthem.  The loping and almost awkward “Sometimes I Dream I’m a Country,” trots along like a majestic camel leading us to an oasis where we know we find the ever-comforting sweet pop nectar.  The album nears its conclusion with the driving rhythm of the song “Fantastic,” where we get a sardonic glimpse of the artist boldly and defiantly staring at himself in the mirror.  At the end we’re left with the piano ballad “Adieu,” in which Faris tells us “there’s nothing left unsaid but adieu…” though for our sake, I hope he’s got plenty more to say.

 

listen to the title track "Problematico"