Taking their name from Mick 'n' Keef's latin-flavoured leer-fest from 1976's Black And Blue, this London two-piece promise much deep-fried southern rhythm-oil. And, if they're going to use well-travelled journeyman metaphors as "down the road apiece" and "chasing the shadows away" they better use them well.
Lacking the lip-smackin' lasciviousness of the Rolling Stones in their otherwise langurous mid-seventies period, Hey Negrita are much closer in essence to (and there's no easy way to say this)... Dire Straits. Once one-man headband promotor Mark Knopfler expanded the sound of Dylan's flinty, tinder-dry religious period, the results were startingly similar to the minor-chord ruminations of Hey Negrita's One Mississippi.
Meanwhile that A-side (do people still say that?) Devil In My Shoes says much like Knopfler's jaunty-but-still-dull Muswell Hillbillies. Hey Negrita makes much of lines like "Been battlin' God / With every sigh" and while they may well have seen the dark end of one too many whisky glasses, it's hard not to believe that the Devil's donated his loafers to someone more deserving.
more 