If there's a dark, deserted laneway in some cold, rainy city that needs a soundtrack, Hugo Race & The True Spirit has it covered with The Spirit.
A bluesy, brooding collection of songs by a talented singer-songwriter with three decades of musical prowess behind him, Hugo Race and his band stick to their guns and deliver their sound with gusto. It's a little one-dimensional, Race's whispering voice never really challenged, but he's certainly not the first singer with such an approach to make it work. The Spirit is sure to please existing fans, but perhaps not win too many new ones.
