*****

Tao Hua-nguu is classic Rock Salaeng: it combines pop, tung and lam influences in a way which makes them easily the best Isan group around. The album is bookended by its two weakest offerings, but at its heart are five or six memorable songs with hooky instrumentals and choruses the size of Australia.

The title track is comfortably the worst on the album, ruined by being sung in a silly "comic" voice. Track 2, Torasap Meuteu is Salaeng back to near their best, however: a wry take on changes in Isan culture which keeps the slapstick in the video rather than the vocals. Yaak Dai Pua Farang is musically an uneasy blend of pop and lam, while the lyrics and video cut close to a few raw nerves in Isan culture: the singer wants to go to Pattaya or Patong to find an old foreigner who'll cover her with gold (but "I won't sell myself", so that's OK). Track 4 is excellent: Mor lam Chamjai tells the story of an aspiring mor lam singer who is thrown over by his nurse girlfriend in favour of a doctor (mor parinya — funnier in Isan than in English. The same pun is also the basis of Ep Rak Khun Mor on Jintara's Mor lam Sa On 7). So many of the best lam and tung singers are women that it can seem that it's always the men who are unfaithful; songs like this and Motosai Hang are welcome correctives. Track 5, RawPawPaw Raw Rak, is less interesting, with unsubtle and overly-illustrative instrumentals.

E-mail E-meo, another one based on a pun, has a similar theme to Torasap Meuteu and is probably the best song yet written about the Internet. Track 7, Motosai Hang Sing, unwisely invites comparisons with its wonderful predecessor, though in itself it is perfectly adequate. Mai Mi Pua Nak-hua Khrai and Law Baw Mi Gin are nice social comments: the one a refreshingly enlightened song about a woman defying society's pressures to get married, the other the story of a man who spends all his money on designer goods and can't afford to eat. The final track, Siang Khruan Jaak Ngansop, is something of a let-down, with an uninteresting story and one of the group's weaker singers. On the whole though, this is a fine addition to the Rock Salaeng discography.

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