★★★★★
Frustrated by the lack of major label support for his more ambitious projects, Rea has been using the loot he's amassed from worldwide sales of 30 million to personally bankroll his recent endeavours. Santo Spirito finds him concentrating on earthy blues numbers which, while never previously as lucrative as his sturdier AOR, has always been his first love...
- www.recordcollectormag.com
2011-09-12
★★★★★
Always beware the senior rock musician who becomes too fascinated with the intricacies of his craft. has already released one album devoted to a guitar, 2008 'comeback' album The Return of the Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes, along with the whopping 137-track Blues Guitars collection that appeared in 2005 following his battle with pancreatitis. Santo Spirito Blues, then, follows a similar trusty, hoary old path...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
Not Middlesbrough, where he was born, but the banks of the ol' Mississippi, of which he could only have dreamed. Dancing Down The Stony Road is his blues album, and in his search for authenticity you can hear the fretboard buzz and the crickets singing in the hot Delta night (or rather Provence, where the LP was recorded). It's pleasing, JJ Cale kind of fare, but it should never have been a double CD. Even labours of love need editing. Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
He is middle-aged, talented ashell, and you've never heard of him. Such is life for Chris Rea in these United States ? where, despite oodles of admirationfrom every other corner of the world, he haven't had a fairhearing in 10 years. Englishman Rea had a pop hit in '78 with "Fool(If You Think It's Over)" and then vaporized; he has since become amajor European star who gets compared to Dire Straits a lot. Rea is an interestingwriter...
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Success continued to elude Chris Rea on his third album, Tennis on which he began to experiment with slightly longer songs and more freeform jamming music, the tracks "Every Time I See You Smile," "Stick It" and the title track all being over five minutes long...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Chris Rea was a rock star with the sort of gravel voice that was ideally suited to singing the blues, or was he a blues star who occasionally lent his talent to performing rock. The Road to Hell & Back was his 28th album in total including five different greatest-hits compilations, but was his first live album...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Espresso Logic is aptly titled, as the majority of the music would fit well in a late-night coffee house. It's a jazzier-bluesier album than most of Rea's, featuring some fine slide guitar, particularly on the title track. The atmospheric "Miles Is a Cigarette" is a smoky evocation of longing and remembrance. This hushed mood carries over into "She Closed Her Eyes," which is a poem spoken over a soothing, wistful backing. It's not all moody atmospherics, though...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Chris Rea's voice is like the smoke off a prairie fire or the sparks and flame from a flint and steel. Coupled with his robust, tasteful songwriting, the effect is to pull the listener into a song or album, grabbing at the brain -- not just the ears. Auberge is the follow-up to Road to Hell, an ambitious, dark-toned album that found European and critical success...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
A sequel of sorts to his earlier On the Beach, King of the Beach continues the laid-back mood of the earlier album but is (despite the goofy title) a more mature and unified work. It's one of his best albums and is a return to form after the film soundtrack La Passione and the more electronic sounds of The Road to Hell Part 2...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
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