Aloha Got Soul (Strut Records) is a fascinating tale of how soul, rock and disco was transmogrified on its arrival in Hawaii into something that the territory made its own. Covering the period, it features a host of home-grown bands who really should be better known. Maybe this is the start of it.
The titular The Last Saint is a Polynesian youth struggling emotionally, physically and financially with his mother’s drug addiction and estranged father’s pressure to sharpen up and work for a living in the family’s Auckland business – distributing P or methamphetamine. The rounded, sympathetic portrayal is convincing, but let down by an overblown, clichéd script.
