Consumer Guide Album

Kassav': Kassav' #5 [Celluloid, 1987]
Like Senegalese mbalax and Zairean rumba, Antillean zouk has its schlocky tendencies--singing in Creole doesn't get all the French out of your system. So Celluloid's two U.S. Kassav' LPs, both from the early '80s, feature synthesizers and fancy horns and ladies going duh-do-do-do as well as hot polyrhythms and soul/calypso/rumba horns and the occasional catchy theme. Georges Decimus is pretty tuneless, closing one side with a drum piece that won't signify to anyone who doesn't know the difference between ti bwa and Saint Jean (they're both rhythms), and while Kassav' #5 is a lot catchier, I bet greatest hits plucked from the two dozen albums recorded by the band and its many offshoots would be a lot catchier than that. Saved by the schlock-like-it-oughta-be of "Anki Nou"--a quiet storm that crosses "A Whiter Shade of Pale" with "Maggot Brain." B+