SOME OF THE REVIEWS FOR 'KISS OF FIRE'
Q MAGAZINE – ANDY FYFE
Also fuelled by rock’s primal forces is the debut from FLORENCE JOELLE’s Kiss Of Fire (ZOLTAN ***). Paris-born, Camden-based, her music has a heady, jazzy swing of the hips, the sultry tango of I’ll Come Running the perfect soundtrack to any Martini-fuelled, Mad Men-themed party.
THE ARTS DESK – HOWARD MALE
I never thought I’d find myself saying that a French female vocalist reminded me of Howard Devoto. But there we are, what can you do? There’s just something in the way she sings the verses of “Hell be Damned and Look Out”: the pauses between words (“Let’s face it… you may only live… once”); the way the last note (word) of the line just kind of hangs there, emotionally ambiguous and philosophically inscrutable. But Florence Joelle also has the sensuous purr of a French Marilyn Monroe. So whichever way you look at it, you’ve got to sit up and take notice.
Recorded straight to analogue tape, the fire-glow warmth of the sound complements the breathy detached uniqueness of the vocalist, as do the walking double bass lines, scratchy tremoloed guitar and crisply functional drumming. One can hear the arch longing of the chanson, the swirling reefer smoke of bar-room jazz, and the youthful rebel drive of rockabilly, all fused together so you can’t see the join, on this short but bittersweet album.
Two carefully chosen cover versions – “When I Get Low I Get High” and “Unchain my Heart” – fit perfectly into this modest 10-song set, serving to both demonstrate that Joelle’s own songs measure up, and that she can make standards her own just by being herself. The nearest comparison in the shiny world of pop would be Imelda May. But her album wears thin after just one play, partly because its digital sheen just wears you down with its sonic linearity. So, the two-track analogue gambit pays off, because if you’re going to revisit all this mid-20th-century music it’s got to be griddle-seared rather than microwaved. Kiss of Fire is just that: the tenderness with the heat, and the sensuality with the danger. Smokin’!
http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4121:cd-florence-joelle-kiss-of-fire&Itemid=107
VINTAGE GUITAR MAGAZINE - MICHAEL DREGNI
Florence Joelle sings rock ’n’ roll like Billie Holiday might, croons a torch ballad as Wanda Jackson may, and spices it all with a bit of Patti Smith attitude.
Add to that Joelle’s French accent by way of London’s Camden Town, plus a wardrobe of silk and satin vintage evening dresses that can cause whiplash. And finally there’s the band, with wicked guitar lines from cowboy shirt-clad Huck Whitney, polyrhythmic drumming by Arthur Lager, and a solid backline from bassist/pianist Chris Campion. The result is one of the funkiest jazz-rockabilly-punk fusion bands anywhere.
On the band’s debut CD, they create a smoky late-night mood lost somewhere between Django Reinhardt’s Paris, a Southern roadhouse, and CBGBs. The album has a well-balanced sound, rocking yet with a jazz club’s intimacy that lets you hear all of the instrumentation. Live, the band has an even more powerful bark and bite.
Beyond two tracks—Chick Webb’s “When I Get Low I Get High” and Teddy Powell’s “Unchain My Heart’’—all the songs are originals. Joelle’s compositions are very much in the mode of classic jazz, yet at times with a sharp modern edge of humor and irony. The opening track, “Hell Be Damned And Look Out,” captures the band in full glory. Moving between Joelle’s impassioned singing and Whitney’s barb-edged guitar, the song personifies their devil-may-care attitude toward musical genres as well as the glorious creation that can result. MD
R2 – ROCKnREEL – DAVID BURKE
“The past, it appears, is the future. Imelda May has ignited a rockabilly revival, while Rumer is making it hip to remould 1970s pop for a whole new generation.
And so to Florence Joelle’s Kiss Of Fire, whose eponymous debut is gloriously retro, incorporating elements of vintage rock’n’roll, jazz, French chanson, and rhythm and blues as it used to be before the label was misappropriated by dodgy looking geezers with gold chains adorning bare buffed chests.
You have to remind yourself that all but two of the songs here are not, in fact, but were written by Joelle herself and arranged by her rather excellent band comprising Chris Campion, Arthur Lager and Huck Whitney. And damn fine songs they are, too – especially ‘Stardust Merchant’ and ‘Gypsy Boy’. Of The two covers, a steaming version of Chick Webb’s ‘When I Get Low I Get High’ tops a pedestrian ‘Unchain My Heart’.”
BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS – NICK WEST
“I started seeing Florence Joelle playing out with Sterling Roswell a couple of years back, and always impressed I stuck up a mental post-it. Then came last autumn’s Butterfly Records 7” EP, a lovely artefact in its own right, and when you put the needle on the vinyl four corking tunes with that special Gallic taken on early R&B and what it grew out of.
Sterling was gone and his place taken by Huck Whitney out of the Flaming Stars, with cineaste Arthur Lager on the drums, and Chris Campion on bass and piano now making up the Kiss Of Fire. They provided the setting, but in the middle of it all was Florence’s voice, classic and sexy, redolent of chanson and Rive Gauche cellar bars. Great takes on Chick Webb’s paean to reefer ‘When I Get Low I Get High’ and Bobby Sharp’s ‘Unchain My Heart’ sat alongside two cool originals, the sultry ‘Watermelon Gin’ and the twang-rich ‘Stardust Merchant’.
All four songs are retained here on her first album which extends and makes good on the promise. What’s so cool is that, while she certainly sends you spinning back to those highly romantic locations, there’s a wondrous variety to everything. From the tropical – “the drums! The drums! – ‘Hell Be Damned And Look Out’, the Flamenco-filled ‘Gypsy Boy’, the soothing reassurance with added fine harmonica of ‘I’ll Come Running’, to the rockabilly of ‘Never Thought I’d See The Day’.
Plus about halfway through you’re swept up by the wild rush of the glorious declaration of self that is ‘True To Myself’, and as you get your breath back all you can do is nod in assent and enjoy the rest of what’s an absolutely splendid debut. (Florencejoelleskissoffire.com). “
MIDWEEK MUSIC – THE VINYL DISTRICT
“Florence Joelle and her most worthy henchmen (Huck Whitney, Chris Campion, Arthur Lager) released their debut album, Florence Joelle’s Kiss Of Fire on Zoltan Records on July 10th. Their sound is an exciting smorgasbord of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and blues all sprinkled with a healthy swish of French style and Tarantinoesque panache.
This triumphant debut manages to combine a wonderful blend of unique covers (‘When I Get Low I Get High’ and ‘Unchain My Heart’) with some startling original songs, which flow together seamlessly to make this an album to be taken very seriously.”
http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/uk/2011/07/midweek-music-florence-joelles-kiss-of-fire/
LOUDER THAN WAR – IAN JOHNSTON
"Quick, call the fire brigade. Having caused a succession of sizable tremors on the London gig circuit, consistently confounding expectations and drawing an ever-wider audience, the superb Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire combo finally release their eponymous red-hot debut LP. Drawing upon classic whacked-out America roots music and injecting it with her own je ne sais quoi, Florence Joelle and her highly distinguished ensemble (featuring the notorious leftfield occultist filmmaker Arthur I Walked With A Surrealist Lager on spooked voodoo drums and Flaming Star stalwart Huck Whitney playing mercurial lead guitar) have fashioned a sound that is simultaneously timeless and yet entirely current. A neat trick if you can pull it off, and Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire have done it with acres of style to spare. Whether on the inspired covers (early jazz/swing drummer Chick Webb’s Mary Jane suffused ‘When I Get Low I Get High’ and the benchmark 1950s rhythm & blues opus ‘Unchain My Heart’) or Joelle’s highly evocative original compositions (the opening propulsive statement of intent – with Lager freely channelling Sandy Nelson and the zombie beat of Nick Knox – ‘Hell Be Damned And Look Out (You May Only Live Once)’, Latin flavoured ‘Watermelon Gin’, the rockabilly empowered ‘Never Thought I’d See The Day’, the licentious rhumba influenced ‘Gypsy Boy’ and the yearning ‘Stardust Merchant’), Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire ignite passion, drama and dancing feet. Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire act as an intoxicating conduit between such vital contemporary figures such as Marc Ribot’s Los Cubanos Postizos, John Zorn, Chuck E. Weiss and Tom Waits with French chanson, vintage rock ‘n’ roll, loungecore and enduring jazz standards. In short, Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire is one hell of a heady brew that should be imbibed in one sitting.
Perhaps even more importantly, Joelle’s wonderfully fractured and totally unaffected emotive voice speaks of experience and of a life lived to the hilt. The highs, the lows, the agony, the ecstasy – its all here, unadorned, unfettered and cut loose by a committed bon viveur. Florence Joelle is a very welcome antidote to the bland and airbrushed female vocals that currently infect popular music of every shade. As a girl growing up in Paris, Florence obviously collected and listened to early blues, doo-wop and 50s rock ‘n’ roll. She has distilled these influences, together with the Parisian street music of bal musette and North African rai, into her own potent form of musical expression, powered by Lager’s bad juju percussion and Whitney’s angular guitar lines. If you dig Gemma Ray or Richard Hawley, you should definitely find Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire dramatic widescreen sounds highly combustible stuff. Vive la difference!
Florence Joelle’s Kiss Of Fire out 11th July 2011 on Zoltan Records
http://louderthanwar.com/blogs/florence-joelle%E2%80%99s-kiss-of-fire-album-review
BBC 6 Music 'Pick Of The Week' - Ruth Barnes
“It's her voice that smacks you around the head. It's utterly unique. […] Her own compositions are drenched in the American blues, but always stay true to her own inimitable sound” .
Time Out
"Super fine and sassy singer fusing a Tarrantino-esque sense of cool with a vocal style that imbibes both Peggy Lee and Edith Piaf with touches of jazz and rock 'n' roll”.
Bucketfull Of Brains
“They conjure an atmosphere of sultry exoticism […] combine early R'n'B stylings with French chanson and create something very special. [ ] Addictive and compulsive.”
Fatea Magazine
"I first came across Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire via her appearance on Bob's Folk Show earlier in the year. My first reaction was to immediately acquire a copy of the self titled album, good decision. Paris born, Camden based, Florence manages to combine Left Bank cool and rock 'n' roll for a sound that is both sultry and fiesty. It is, however, the tracks where she adds Gypsy jazz into the heady brew that really stand out amongst a fine set of peers. The sound is very retro, you can almost smell the cigarette smoke in the coffee bar. This is an abum of cafe racers, bad boys and bad girls. "
Wasser-Prawda.de
"With her first album, Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire continues on her chosen path and presents songs between R&B, rockabilly and jazz, which already today sound like classics from the 50s.
Caution! This is no real review with the professional distance of a critic.
To follow the story of a band from the first album to the debut album is an exciting matter. Especially if one can not only observe the search for an own style, but also the creation of unique songs. When I first wrote about Florence Joelle in 2010, I drew on a few demos and live recordings, classics, for example, like "fever", which in a quite "rustical" sound already allowed to feel the improbable power of seduction contained in the voice of this London-based French singer. And then, in October, her first EP appeared, which, besides two covers, contained mostly songs of Florence herself. Songs like "Stardust Merchant" have since always accompanied me in a way, and without signs of wear.
And now there is the debut album by her and her band Kiss of Fire, which seamlessly connects or really is an extension of that EP: an extension, because the songs of the EP can here be found in the same recordings. But a connection, because there are more of these wonderful songs by Florence: like "True to Myself", a rockabilly tune full of woman power (without any gruffness), or the opener "Hell Be Damned and Look Out" with a similar drive. Or the smooth reggae "I'll Come Running" with the singer's blues harp. And of course the longing "The Look In His Eyes".
Whoever now says: this is all retro and does not really bring anything new to pop music, is of course right. By their sound and style of playing, the songs could all already be 50 years old. But really: what do I care about the ideas that there always have to be continuous progress also in music? Nothing at all. Because for me only the songs count and how they touch me through their interpretations. And this Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire can do better than most celebrated bands, especially current ones. Who does not have the EP yet should definitely by the album. And who has got the EP can at least get the remaining songs as download. This band really belongs in the charts!"
Nathan Norgel
MWE3.COM
"Over in England, Paris-born singer-songwriter Florence Joelle is causing quite a stir with her new CD entitled Florence Joell’s Kiss Of Fire. Florence is a little bluesier than say Imelda May, yet there’s still a cool kind of ‘50s / ‘60s retro vibe in play on her CD and overall it’s filled with a sensational ‘60s rockabilly / lounge jazz vibe. Singing in English with just a slight French accent, Florence gets a solid backing from her band including lead guitarist Huck Whitney, Chris Campion (bass, keyboards) and Arthur Lager (drums, percussion). For a comparison, imagine a young Mary Ford singing rockabilly, lounge jazz and even flamenco style Gypsy Jazz. Chances are if you enjoyed the latest works of Imelda May, you’ll dig the retro-pop groove of Florence Joell’s Kiss Of Fire. "
Q MAGAZINE – ANDY FYFE
Also fuelled by rock’s primal forces is the debut from FLORENCE JOELLE’s Kiss Of Fire (ZOLTAN ***). Paris-born, Camden-based, her music has a heady, jazzy swing of the hips, the sultry tango of I’ll Come Running the perfect soundtrack to any Martini-fuelled, Mad Men-themed party.
THE ARTS DESK – HOWARD MALE
I never thought I’d find myself saying that a French female vocalist reminded me of Howard Devoto. But there we are, what can you do? There’s just something in the way she sings the verses of “Hell be Damned and Look Out”: the pauses between words (“Let’s face it… you may only live… once”); the way the last note (word) of the line just kind of hangs there, emotionally ambiguous and philosophically inscrutable. But Florence Joelle also has the sensuous purr of a French Marilyn Monroe. So whichever way you look at it, you’ve got to sit up and take notice.
Recorded straight to analogue tape, the fire-glow warmth of the sound complements the breathy detached uniqueness of the vocalist, as do the walking double bass lines, scratchy tremoloed guitar and crisply functional drumming. One can hear the arch longing of the chanson, the swirling reefer smoke of bar-room jazz, and the youthful rebel drive of rockabilly, all fused together so you can’t see the join, on this short but bittersweet album.
Two carefully chosen cover versions – “When I Get Low I Get High” and “Unchain my Heart” – fit perfectly into this modest 10-song set, serving to both demonstrate that Joelle’s own songs measure up, and that she can make standards her own just by being herself. The nearest comparison in the shiny world of pop would be Imelda May. But her album wears thin after just one play, partly because its digital sheen just wears you down with its sonic linearity. So, the two-track analogue gambit pays off, because if you’re going to revisit all this mid-20th-century music it’s got to be griddle-seared rather than microwaved. Kiss of Fire is just that: the tenderness with the heat, and the sensuality with the danger. Smokin’!
http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4121:cd-florence-joelle-kiss-of-fire&Itemid=107
VINTAGE GUITAR MAGAZINE - MICHAEL DREGNI
Florence Joelle sings rock ’n’ roll like Billie Holiday might, croons a torch ballad as Wanda Jackson may, and spices it all with a bit of Patti Smith attitude.
Add to that Joelle’s French accent by way of London’s Camden Town, plus a wardrobe of silk and satin vintage evening dresses that can cause whiplash. And finally there’s the band, with wicked guitar lines from cowboy shirt-clad Huck Whitney, polyrhythmic drumming by Arthur Lager, and a solid backline from bassist/pianist Chris Campion. The result is one of the funkiest jazz-rockabilly-punk fusion bands anywhere.
On the band’s debut CD, they create a smoky late-night mood lost somewhere between Django Reinhardt’s Paris, a Southern roadhouse, and CBGBs. The album has a well-balanced sound, rocking yet with a jazz club’s intimacy that lets you hear all of the instrumentation. Live, the band has an even more powerful bark and bite.
Beyond two tracks—Chick Webb’s “When I Get Low I Get High” and Teddy Powell’s “Unchain My Heart’’—all the songs are originals. Joelle’s compositions are very much in the mode of classic jazz, yet at times with a sharp modern edge of humor and irony. The opening track, “Hell Be Damned And Look Out,” captures the band in full glory. Moving between Joelle’s impassioned singing and Whitney’s barb-edged guitar, the song personifies their devil-may-care attitude toward musical genres as well as the glorious creation that can result. MD
R2 – ROCKnREEL – DAVID BURKE
“The past, it appears, is the future. Imelda May has ignited a rockabilly revival, while Rumer is making it hip to remould 1970s pop for a whole new generation.
And so to Florence Joelle’s Kiss Of Fire, whose eponymous debut is gloriously retro, incorporating elements of vintage rock’n’roll, jazz, French chanson, and rhythm and blues as it used to be before the label was misappropriated by dodgy looking geezers with gold chains adorning bare buffed chests.
You have to remind yourself that all but two of the songs here are not, in fact, but were written by Joelle herself and arranged by her rather excellent band comprising Chris Campion, Arthur Lager and Huck Whitney. And damn fine songs they are, too – especially ‘Stardust Merchant’ and ‘Gypsy Boy’. Of The two covers, a steaming version of Chick Webb’s ‘When I Get Low I Get High’ tops a pedestrian ‘Unchain My Heart’.”
BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS – NICK WEST
“I started seeing Florence Joelle playing out with Sterling Roswell a couple of years back, and always impressed I stuck up a mental post-it. Then came last autumn’s Butterfly Records 7” EP, a lovely artefact in its own right, and when you put the needle on the vinyl four corking tunes with that special Gallic taken on early R&B and what it grew out of.
Sterling was gone and his place taken by Huck Whitney out of the Flaming Stars, with cineaste Arthur Lager on the drums, and Chris Campion on bass and piano now making up the Kiss Of Fire. They provided the setting, but in the middle of it all was Florence’s voice, classic and sexy, redolent of chanson and Rive Gauche cellar bars. Great takes on Chick Webb’s paean to reefer ‘When I Get Low I Get High’ and Bobby Sharp’s ‘Unchain My Heart’ sat alongside two cool originals, the sultry ‘Watermelon Gin’ and the twang-rich ‘Stardust Merchant’.
All four songs are retained here on her first album which extends and makes good on the promise. What’s so cool is that, while she certainly sends you spinning back to those highly romantic locations, there’s a wondrous variety to everything. From the tropical – “the drums! The drums! – ‘Hell Be Damned And Look Out’, the Flamenco-filled ‘Gypsy Boy’, the soothing reassurance with added fine harmonica of ‘I’ll Come Running’, to the rockabilly of ‘Never Thought I’d See The Day’.
Plus about halfway through you’re swept up by the wild rush of the glorious declaration of self that is ‘True To Myself’, and as you get your breath back all you can do is nod in assent and enjoy the rest of what’s an absolutely splendid debut. (Florencejoelleskissoffire.com). “
MIDWEEK MUSIC – THE VINYL DISTRICT
“Florence Joelle and her most worthy henchmen (Huck Whitney, Chris Campion, Arthur Lager) released their debut album, Florence Joelle’s Kiss Of Fire on Zoltan Records on July 10th. Their sound is an exciting smorgasbord of vintage rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and blues all sprinkled with a healthy swish of French style and Tarantinoesque panache.
This triumphant debut manages to combine a wonderful blend of unique covers (‘When I Get Low I Get High’ and ‘Unchain My Heart’) with some startling original songs, which flow together seamlessly to make this an album to be taken very seriously.”
http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/uk/2011/07/midweek-music-florence-joelles-kiss-of-fire/
LOUDER THAN WAR – IAN JOHNSTON
"Quick, call the fire brigade. Having caused a succession of sizable tremors on the London gig circuit, consistently confounding expectations and drawing an ever-wider audience, the superb Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire combo finally release their eponymous red-hot debut LP. Drawing upon classic whacked-out America roots music and injecting it with her own je ne sais quoi, Florence Joelle and her highly distinguished ensemble (featuring the notorious leftfield occultist filmmaker Arthur I Walked With A Surrealist Lager on spooked voodoo drums and Flaming Star stalwart Huck Whitney playing mercurial lead guitar) have fashioned a sound that is simultaneously timeless and yet entirely current. A neat trick if you can pull it off, and Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire have done it with acres of style to spare. Whether on the inspired covers (early jazz/swing drummer Chick Webb’s Mary Jane suffused ‘When I Get Low I Get High’ and the benchmark 1950s rhythm & blues opus ‘Unchain My Heart’) or Joelle’s highly evocative original compositions (the opening propulsive statement of intent – with Lager freely channelling Sandy Nelson and the zombie beat of Nick Knox – ‘Hell Be Damned And Look Out (You May Only Live Once)’, Latin flavoured ‘Watermelon Gin’, the rockabilly empowered ‘Never Thought I’d See The Day’, the licentious rhumba influenced ‘Gypsy Boy’ and the yearning ‘Stardust Merchant’), Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire ignite passion, drama and dancing feet. Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire act as an intoxicating conduit between such vital contemporary figures such as Marc Ribot’s Los Cubanos Postizos, John Zorn, Chuck E. Weiss and Tom Waits with French chanson, vintage rock ‘n’ roll, loungecore and enduring jazz standards. In short, Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire is one hell of a heady brew that should be imbibed in one sitting.
Perhaps even more importantly, Joelle’s wonderfully fractured and totally unaffected emotive voice speaks of experience and of a life lived to the hilt. The highs, the lows, the agony, the ecstasy – its all here, unadorned, unfettered and cut loose by a committed bon viveur. Florence Joelle is a very welcome antidote to the bland and airbrushed female vocals that currently infect popular music of every shade. As a girl growing up in Paris, Florence obviously collected and listened to early blues, doo-wop and 50s rock ‘n’ roll. She has distilled these influences, together with the Parisian street music of bal musette and North African rai, into her own potent form of musical expression, powered by Lager’s bad juju percussion and Whitney’s angular guitar lines. If you dig Gemma Ray or Richard Hawley, you should definitely find Florence Joelle’s Kiss of Fire dramatic widescreen sounds highly combustible stuff. Vive la difference!
Florence Joelle’s Kiss Of Fire out 11th July 2011 on Zoltan Records
http://louderthanwar.com/blogs/florence-joelle%E2%80%99s-kiss-of-fire-album-review
BBC 6 Music 'Pick Of The Week' - Ruth Barnes
“It's her voice that smacks you around the head. It's utterly unique. […] Her own compositions are drenched in the American blues, but always stay true to her own inimitable sound” .
Time Out
"Super fine and sassy singer fusing a Tarrantino-esque sense of cool with a vocal style that imbibes both Peggy Lee and Edith Piaf with touches of jazz and rock 'n' roll”.
Bucketfull Of Brains
“They conjure an atmosphere of sultry exoticism […] combine early R'n'B stylings with French chanson and create something very special. [ ] Addictive and compulsive.”
Fatea Magazine
"I first came across Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire via her appearance on Bob's Folk Show earlier in the year. My first reaction was to immediately acquire a copy of the self titled album, good decision. Paris born, Camden based, Florence manages to combine Left Bank cool and rock 'n' roll for a sound that is both sultry and fiesty. It is, however, the tracks where she adds Gypsy jazz into the heady brew that really stand out amongst a fine set of peers. The sound is very retro, you can almost smell the cigarette smoke in the coffee bar. This is an abum of cafe racers, bad boys and bad girls. "
Wasser-Prawda.de
"With her first album, Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire continues on her chosen path and presents songs between R&B, rockabilly and jazz, which already today sound like classics from the 50s.
Caution! This is no real review with the professional distance of a critic.
To follow the story of a band from the first album to the debut album is an exciting matter. Especially if one can not only observe the search for an own style, but also the creation of unique songs. When I first wrote about Florence Joelle in 2010, I drew on a few demos and live recordings, classics, for example, like "fever", which in a quite "rustical" sound already allowed to feel the improbable power of seduction contained in the voice of this London-based French singer. And then, in October, her first EP appeared, which, besides two covers, contained mostly songs of Florence herself. Songs like "Stardust Merchant" have since always accompanied me in a way, and without signs of wear.
And now there is the debut album by her and her band Kiss of Fire, which seamlessly connects or really is an extension of that EP: an extension, because the songs of the EP can here be found in the same recordings. But a connection, because there are more of these wonderful songs by Florence: like "True to Myself", a rockabilly tune full of woman power (without any gruffness), or the opener "Hell Be Damned and Look Out" with a similar drive. Or the smooth reggae "I'll Come Running" with the singer's blues harp. And of course the longing "The Look In His Eyes".
Whoever now says: this is all retro and does not really bring anything new to pop music, is of course right. By their sound and style of playing, the songs could all already be 50 years old. But really: what do I care about the ideas that there always have to be continuous progress also in music? Nothing at all. Because for me only the songs count and how they touch me through their interpretations. And this Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire can do better than most celebrated bands, especially current ones. Who does not have the EP yet should definitely by the album. And who has got the EP can at least get the remaining songs as download. This band really belongs in the charts!"
Nathan Norgel
MWE3.COM
"Over in England, Paris-born singer-songwriter Florence Joelle is causing quite a stir with her new CD entitled Florence Joell’s Kiss Of Fire. Florence is a little bluesier than say Imelda May, yet there’s still a cool kind of ‘50s / ‘60s retro vibe in play on her CD and overall it’s filled with a sensational ‘60s rockabilly / lounge jazz vibe. Singing in English with just a slight French accent, Florence gets a solid backing from her band including lead guitarist Huck Whitney, Chris Campion (bass, keyboards) and Arthur Lager (drums, percussion). For a comparison, imagine a young Mary Ford singing rockabilly, lounge jazz and even flamenco style Gypsy Jazz. Chances are if you enjoyed the latest works of Imelda May, you’ll dig the retro-pop groove of Florence Joell’s Kiss Of Fire. "