Royal Fado

You’ve got to hand it to Yolanda Soares for her keenness in taking fado into a new direction. She began by trying to mash it up with a baroque and an electronic musical backdrop, adopting a bel canto style on the album Music Box. Now, with Royal Fado, she reinforces her reputation as a crossover artist, bringing together fado, flamenco and Oriental music. It is a tad awkward that Soares subtitles the album Amália's Operas when in fact Amália never did sing either opera or in an operatic fashion. She is, rather, addressing a dismissive comment made by Amália's guitarists when she first began singing Alain Oulman's compositions – which were more technically demanding than the customary traditional fados.

But Soares takes it almost literally and tries to apply a light operatic layer to this repertoire. It is revealing that she brings in Welsh singer Rhydian Roberts (of X Factor fame), to perform a duet with her, since Royal Fado ends up sounding far too much like Saturday-night TV entertainment. Fusion often spells a lack of focus and Soares' music here falls into that fatal trap: having taken the gravity out of the fado, even the guitar excellence of Custódio Castelo is unable to save Royal Fado from inconsequence.