Najuah
Friday, May 22nd, 2009Contact: , management , www.myspace.com/najuah
Energy. Enthusiasm. Edge.
Those are the first three words that come to mind when trying to describe Toronto’s Najuah, a six-piece pop/rock act fronted by sisters Juliet and Hanifa that also features the talents of drummer Jeremy Kleynhans, rhythm guitarist Brian Seligman, guitarist Neil Whitford, and bassist Ben Miller.
The band’s current stock and trade is a zippy, club-friendly mix that draws from a host of influences ranging from ’70s punk music, ’80s alternative rock and ska to power pop and contemporary soul.
If you put Blondie, The Specials and EnVogue in a blender, threw in a dash of The Walkmen and added a snippet of Exene Cervenka, you might come up with something resembling Najuah’s sound today.
Screaming guitars are married to big dance beats, big bass lines, and thundering drums share space with the kind of organ sound The Doors and Strawberry Alarm Clock used to go for.
And on top of everything are these two over-the-top voices. Juliet and Hanifa have energy to burn and they burn up a lot of it on tracks like “Pablo,” “Manhattan,” and “Someone Else.”
The bandmembers are writing good material, they’re pumping a lot of juice through it, and they’re going for big production values, the latter with the help of producer Malik Worthy (Esthero, k-os, Molly Johnson) and Grammy/Juno Award winning mixing engineer Jeff McCulloch. Good people to have in your corner.
Najuah have caught the ears of industry players like MuchMusic, MTV Canada, BET, the Canadian Music Network, and Billboard magazine, and even bigger things are, I expect, looming on the horizon.