Chantal Chamandy: angelic voice, babe-fatale and matching love songs

At times sounding like Mariah, Celine Dion, Shakira, Beyoncé, J-Lo or, even, the divine Barbra Streisand. With looks, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler - she is a babe. A babe “to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window” [with an inexplicable action of his organ]. Chantal Chamandy can appear to be many a thing but she is her own woman on ‘Love Needs You’.

Born in Alexandria (Egypt) to Greek and Lebanese parents the beautiful Chantal emigrated to Montreal, Canada as a young girl. At her boarding school a nun became her mentor and after a spell in the school choir she began formal training as an opera singer. Renowned tutor Carmen Mehta was charged with developing Chantal’s formidable musical talents and it is an array of soaring soprano, soulful whispers and breathless rasps.

You get it all and much more on her album, 'Love Needs You', where she perfectly handles deeply personal songs of love and the pursuit of happiness with unbridled passion. “The songs on my album are a true reflection of my thoughts and feelings,” she explains. ‘Feels Like Love’ is Chantal’s producing an epic love-ballad worthy of fellow Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion. It was Ms Chamandy’s belief in love as “the common denominator that holds us together” which drove her to write, arrange and produce this set of songs.

A two year labour of love turning her feelings into the album with devastating results: the first single ‘You Want Me’ is a dramatic feel-good dance track with propulsive darbuka percussion, swanky string arrangements and alluring pop melody that is dominated with Chantal’s sexy vocals. It gets even more charged on ‘Crazy’, a song about the madness of love - that is delivered in French.

Speaker of five languages [alongside Spanish, Italian and Arabic, all featured on the disc], she fuels her catchy pop hooks with evident ease throughout the album particularly on the Arabic soul of ‘More’, which features a gospel-like chorus, and ‘Zindegi’, a song to define romantics everywhere.

Ever-so-rarely these days an artist emerges with enough talent, vision and star-quality to transcend borders and annihilate cultural divisions. Chantal sounds and looks like such an artisan. Her enchanting, mystical fusion of global sounds and her ethereal, sensual vocals should bring light to the international music scene…

And when love sounds this good - sung by someone who appears like an impersonation of temptation - who are we to argue with someone referred to as 'The Jewel Of The Nile'?

8/10