Yusuf
Roadsinger

Cat Stevens was an eclectic and original songwriter, a precocious talent capable of writing songs like "Portobello Road" as a teenager, and he gave his best in four masterpieces like "Mona Bone Jakon," "Tea For The Tillerman," "Teaser And The Firecat," and "Catch Bull At Four." Then, without warning of a decline, as if the lightbulb of genius had burned out in his head, the magic fades, and from 1973 to 1978, the artist of Cypriot origin released a series of mediocre albums, to put it kindly. However, the conversion to Islam and especially a nearly thirty-year distance from Western pop music were a real salvation for Steven Demetre Georgiou: on his return to the scene, he re-emerges as a renewed artist, free from the dregs of the last Cat Stevens. Yusuf is a simple songwriter, far from the glory of "Lady d'Arbanville," "Sad Lisa," or "Rubylove," but he hasn't lost any of his original talent: an album like "Roadsinger" from 2009 is tangible proof.

"Roadsinger" is the second album of the Yusuf era after the good "An Other Cup" from 2006, launched by the single "Heaven (Where True Love Goes)," which uses and reworks the only good melody of that terrifying sound concoction that was "Foreigner" from 1973, the album that practically marked the beginning of the end for Cat Stevens. "Roadsinger" might lack a launch track with such strong appeal, but it is overall superior to "An Other Cup": more essential and rich in content, with an acoustic and captivating sound, without special effects. The voice over the years has lost the roughness of the roaring '70s, but it has remained practically identical to how it was, with that unmistakable slightly hoarse tone. One of the distinctive features of "Roadsinger" is the continuous alternation of light and shadow, chasing each other in a fascinating chiaroscuro. The initial "Welcome Home" is the balancing element in this play of atmospheres: everything revolves around the combination of voice and acoustic guitar in this fascinating ballad with a sober but not sparse arrangement, enriched by a beautiful text with reflective and philosophical tones, imbued, as indeed the whole album is, with a subtle and discreet spirituality, never used as a banner to flaunt (did someone say Bob Dylan 1979-1981?); similar in sound but decidedly more direct is the captivating "Everytime I Dream," a stinging critique of Western media's arrogance and prejudices, which with its vaguely bluesy intertwining of guitars and the stealthy and lazy direction of the melody, accompanied by a brass section, vaguely recalls Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown." The pair "The Rain"-"World O' Darkness" instead is a dive into the past: pressing, restless atmospheres, hypnotic arrangements, and apocalyptic lyrics, the tormented atmospheres of "Mona Bone Jakon" are much closer than the deceptive passing of time might suggest.

Among the "lights" of the album, which tone down an otherwise somewhat overly skewed towards dark sounds, the most brilliant is the enchanting "Thinking 'Bout You," a love song that starts light as a butterfly, gaining strength and momentum in the refrain, supported by orchestrations used with style and skill. "To Be What You Must" dusts off the piano attack of one of the masterpieces of the old Cat Stevens, "Sitting," evolving in a completely different way, transforming into a hymn of great strength and impact, where Yusuf's voice is accompanied by female choirs and children's voices, then fading into a beautiful orchestral outro, which, after the brief "This Glass World," imbued with a certain psyechedelia reminiscent of Donovan, introduces the beautiful title track, simple and clear, where the "Roadsinger" reveals himself to be Yusuf himself, constantly searching for a point of reference, a safe harbor, something to warm him in the night, to use his own words. After this heartfelt personal manifesto, the album fades slowly, first with the sweet acoustic ballad "All Kinds Of Roses," then with the brief and soft "Dream On (Until...)," accompanied by the warm sound of a saxophone that finally flows into the mystical instrumental "Shamsia," a soft, elegant, and enigmatic closure.

Albums like "Roadsinger" are now a rarity: the craftsmen of song capable of producing works of such caliber have become few, without a generational replacement of equal measure, and the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens is one of these: in just thirty-one minutes of music, he manages to condense all that is his universe today, his vision of the world, and his sound, classic and exotic, light and deep at the same time, and this makes it a great album, a mature product from a great artist; think of the last Cat Stevens, the one from "Izitso" and "Back To Earth," a finished, insipid artist incapable of moving emotions, lost in convoluted and inconclusive arrangements, without verve, who managed to take back his life and his career, returning to be the great songwriter we know, and this does him credit.