Romeo Dance Cheetah – Magnificent Man
Magnificent Man is the nine song debut album from the memorable Romeo Dance Cheetah, a performer hailing from Midwestern America who’s appeared to great notice on the national television program America’s Got Talent as well as attracting a sizable YouTube following thanks to an assortment of performance videos he’s uploaded over recent years. Despite the strongly satirical nature of his style and approach, Romeo Dance Cheetah has unquestionable vocal chops and a true presence, even on a recording, which nicely translates over to the stage.
His presence is commanding without ever being heavy handed or strident. It’s a testament to his talents that he can engage audiences with satire and swaths of broad comedy while balancing those qualities against his obvious musical and compositional skills. The stylishness of Magnificent Man is difficult to ignore, but the heart that’s gone into its writing and recording is equally evident and beats loudly throughout the entirety of the album.
Much of the album’s nine songs take on a guitar-dominated rock sound with a strong rhythm section and some direct, uncluttered drumming concerned first and foremost with maintaining a steady backbeat and eschewing unnecessary fills. The album’s title song is one of Magnificent Man’s best illustrations of that approach and its rock sound has a lot of edge thanks to the guitar work.
There’s rarely anything fancy about Cheetah’s approach and it helps focus listeners in on the musical strengths and, more importantly, the vocal and its attendant comedic content. Cheetah really gets behind this tune, like he does all of the songs, and it helps makes it silliness more credible.
There’s some hard charging melodic qualities driving 35 Year Olds Dancin’ and a good vocal arrangement that competes with the music for attention. The uptempo jog that this song hits on runs just the right length and has a well balanced sound to make it one of the better tracks on Magnificent Man.
Party Poopin’ deserves mentioned in the same breath, but it has less of an emphasis on guitars and relies more on setting an authoritative tone via its drumming. A handful of songs on Magnificent Man really stand out as commercially minded efforts and this is one thanks to a combination of factors.
Cheetah continues this winning streak with The Air Guitar Song, perhaps the peak moment on the album, and the slightly lewd lyrical content is delivered with such glee that you’ll forgive him any excess.
Your wont for forgiveness will be sustained with the track Gone With the Wind. There’s some nice things going on here musical and particularly stinging lead guitar, but the story of the song is really more the arch-theatrical sort of way Cheetah structures the performance.
The contrast between 1970’s Disco King and Laser Beam Makeup is interesting – both are musically quite solid but while the former is just another flavorful quasi-character study song with a sense of humor, the latter is a full on freak out of sorts that amplifies the tendencies he showed off on Gone with the Wind into something even more entertaining.
Live the Dream closes out the album on a much different note and arguably rates as the album’s most beautiful song. Magnificent Man is a wildly entertaining outing for a musical artist who can honestly claim he’s unlike anyone else working today.
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If you enjoyed a sneak preview from Magnificent Man, check out the official website for Romeo Dance Cheetah by clicking here. Give them a like on Facebook by clicking here & a follow on Twitter by clicking here.
