Sheffield Steel

Joe Cocker’s gruff roar can be an acquired taste, but it’s never sounded better than on this album, radically contrasted with the gloss of Chris Blackwell and Alex Sadkin’s wonderfully expensive-sounding production and the tightness of Compass Point All Stars’ dub-funk. The ultra shiny digital keyboard presets bounce of the sheer gravel of Cocker’s voice just so, and the distant echoes of the grittiest blues make the aspirational “80s-ness” of it take on strange new undertones. A strange but fascinating record.