MDOU MOCTAR

Funeral For Justice (Matador)

Five years ago, when Niger guitarist Mdou Moctar released his debut album proper, he claimed to have no real grounding in rock music, or idea how one defines it. Two LPs later – 2021’s Afrique Victime and this followup – there’s a case for Moctar and his band playing it as excitingly as any contemporary outfit.

It’s true that his primary influence is the guitar style of the Tuareg region, and that remains evident on Funeral For Justice, but inherent to this is a series of cross-continental exchanges with Western blues, and Moctar makes hay with that on dazzling rockers like Imouhar, where gnarly ZZ Top-like boogie is spiked by solos in the guitarist’s trademark manner.

A further uptick in production lustre from Afrique Victime has been undertaken with care, and lyrically Moctar brings ample broadsides against colonialism and more: the French, in particular, singled out for some of the bandleader’s verbals.

words NOEL GARDNER