BANANARAMA MASQUERADE
ALL HAIL THE IRREPRESSIBLE QUEENS OF POP, SARA AND KEREN RETURN TO LAY CLAIM TO THEIR CROWNS WITH A BLOCKBUSTER SET OF MAJESTIC TUNES
ABSOLUTE
★★★★
Pop music’s a mercurial thing. What sounds bad to one person sounds bad-ass to another, and there are no more guarantees of devotion than disrespect.
Bananarama, though, have always seemed able to straddle that divide. Over 40 years after their debut 7", Aie A Mwana, caught Terry Hall’s attention, leading to hits with Fun Boy Three and then with their own singles, they still sound just as absurdly, unstoppably entertaining. They may chant “Nothing lasts forever” on the lithe Forever Young, one of this 12th album’s highlights, but that apparently doesn’t apply to the eternally youthful Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward. Really all that’s changed is the technology around them.