Red balloon

"Combining the soulful jazz and funk of their hometown with hip hop and pop, Red Balloon is kaleidoscopic in sound. Tarriona "Tank" Ball's wildly expressive voice weaves through heavy hip-hop beats and disco-funk with equal grace, while her bandmates (...) knit a complex musical landscape beneath her ... What ultimately makes Red Balloon most special is the intensely collaborative spirit that the band possesses. Even though the official roster only boasts four members, they often tour with other musicians and friends. Red Balloon features artists like Trombone Shorty, Lalah Hathaway, Jacob Collier, and more, and it's this atmosphere of welcoming invitation that makes you want to settle right in and let their easy sound wash over you. While Red Balloon might not be breaking new ground, it offers comfort and solidarity - and in the summer of 2022, more than two years since the world shut down, this might be most necessary of al"l.

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"Tank and the Bangas waste no time speaking to the times on Red Balloon, the New Orleanians' opalescent second album for Verve Forecast. The band skips and bops along on the opening "Mr. Bluebell" as Tarriona "Tank" Ball, lyrically clever and vocally nimble as ever, checks off the U.S. Capitol attack, prescription drug dependency, social media, and smartphones, among other ills and issues ... Wayne Brady, in the role of a paranoiac radio DJ - the first of the album's several jocks - heightens the tension by helping the band segue into the agitated electro-trap of "Anxiety," a stream-of-consciousness dispatch from a padded cell ... [On the second half of the album], the madness is mostly mellow ... Good luck to any band that strives to create songs of irrepressible spirit that are as beautiful and soul nourishing as "Stolen Fruit" or the Lalah Hathaway collaboration "Where Do We All Go." It's no coincidence that the first of the two mentions Stevie Wonder by name and that the finale recalls that artist's peerless 1972-1976 period".

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