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A SOULFUL VOICE is a gift divine. Angel Lopez, the lead singer of the vocal quartet Son by Four, has such a gift. Whether effortlessly soaring over a melody or unleashing one riff after another, Lopez has the goods that great singers are made of. He's the real deal.
It's his considerable talent that raises Son by Four's latest-and first English-language - effort, "Purest of Pain" (Sony Discos), above the all-too- typical boy-band fare infecting the modern airwaves. Lopez' plaintive tenor can cast a romantic spell on even the most pedestrian of material. And when he has a song worthy of his vocal zeal, the results are spectacular.
Thankfully, "Purest of Pain" has more tunes in the latter category rather than in the former. The 13-track disc - five of which are English remakes of songs Son by Four has previously recorded in Spanish - is remarkably consistent as contemporary albums go. There's a naturalistic ebb and flow to "Purest of Pain." This is one disc that doesn't feel like a collection of would-be...