Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Anthony Robustelli is a multi-faceted musician --- though primarily a keyboardist, he handles most of the instruments on ANOTHER FATAL BLOW, his fifth CD --- and has toured in support of a number of musicians, both known and unknown, over the course of his career. ANOTHER FATAL BLOW spotlights his considerable strengths and, unfortunately, his weaknesses as well.

Let’s get the weaknesses out of the way first. It’s not that Robustelli’s vocals are bad, necessarily, it’s just that they’re in no way superior to what you’d find at, say, The Spotted Cat on Bourbon Street on any night of the week that Brooks & Dunn don’t drop by incognito. The image I get is of a guy singing along to his radio. Not wonderful, sliding on and off key. Robustelli also needs a producer who is not a buddy, someone he is paying a couple of hundred an hour to keep him on track and not farting around. On “Strollin’” for example he sounds like Joe Walsh screwing around on same basement tapes. Enough already.

The strengths? Robustelli is a hell of a musician, particularly when he sticks to the keys. Not bad at all. He’s a session guy, and his primary job is to make the star sound good, and I bet he does, and consistently, based on what I’m hearing here. His compositions --- “Half A Chance,” particularly --- can be soulful and strong. It’s just not enough, however, to keep one interested for the length of the CD. Influence here is Boz Scaggs, sounds like, but just enough to make you yearn for the real thing.

Robustelli probably has the chops to be a major talent, just not in front of his own band. The result, at least on ANOTHER FATAL BLOW, is a good demo tape for a publisher, but not, alas, for the public.