Featuring some of the most fun and boisterous performances of 2001,
West Coast Mardi Gras Party
is a great collection of
Cajun
music that reaches out to several other genres for inspiration.
Country
,
jazz
-- it all blends together on these 15 tracks to create a good soundtrack to a Louisiana-style good time. The best tracks here are probably the most
influenced; a good example is
"Postman,"
a wonderful track from
Eddie Baytos & the Nervis Brothers
that uses the typical
blues
structure and blends big
Dixieland
horns and
zydeco
style rhythm to create an awesome track. Another great song, the
Pulsators
'
"Back to Louisiana,"
is a
roots rock
ballad
filtered through
rhythms, creating the only real slow point of the album. Not all the songs are this good; in fact, a few of them are pretty average. But when the album picks up, it really picks up, and luckily nothing here is bad enough to skip past. Overall, this is a wonderful collection that should appeal to not only fans of the genre, but anyone who even wants to give
music a chance for the first time. ~ Bradley Torreano