"DanSando" is the title of Luísa Sobral's 6th album

For her sixth album, Portuguese singer-songwriter Luísa Sobral wanted to release ‘an ode to life’ - a drop of medicine in the midst of the pandemic and Russo-Ukraine war.

Since her 2011 debut, The Cherry on My Cake, she has skipped and shimmied along a clever line between pop, French chanson, Portuguese folk and Brazilian bossa nova - the latter more to do with her soft-spoken delivery style than anything we might associate with 60s Brazil. Sobral is too quirky and inventive to do lift music and her love songs come freighted with feminist self-realisation. 

What stands out throughout the 11 songs is the way they build up beautifully from quiet vocal and gently strummed guitar to become power ballads and emotive anthems, weaving in lyrical string arrangements and stirring percussion. On opener Quero Falar de Amor and the sweeping, luxurious final track Serei Sempre Uma Mulher remind us of First Aid Kit - but Sobral packs the choral punch alone.

Between these bookends, we are soothed, enlivened, comforted, embraced; this is holistic treatment. Brazilian producer and multi­-instrumentalist Tó Brandileone works wonders with the mix on her voice, and the tunes are as catchy as any virus; Sobral has written lots of acclaimed songs for other artists, including the 2017 Eurovision winning Amar Pelois Dois for her brother Salvador Sobral. An intriguing and beguilingly intimate album. DanSando is a delight.

"O Nosso Amor É" · Luisa Sobral and Tó Brandileone