Roots Tonic
Roots Tonic Meets Bill Laswell
This is an album of original, instrumental dub reggae from Matisyahu’s backing band produced by the "legendary" Bill Laswell. If you like Matisyahu’s music, then you’ll like this. If you think you’d miss the lyrical element, you may want to avoid it. Most of the tracks here are built around a repeated bass line, and a drum set with lots of reverb on it. Then we find some random sound effects in the mix, thrown in randomly, and a few occasional upbeat guitar strums, or organ riffs. This is minimalist dub, and good for background music. There’s not a whole lot of meat on the bones of the songs here, but neither is there fat; it grooves along nicely and that’s all it’s meant to do. There are only eight songs here, but they all hover around the six-minute range, so it’s a full long-player. They’re all basically the same type of mid-tempo groove with different bass lines holding them down, so if you like one song, you’ll probably like them all. Recommended for fans of Matisyahu, Bill Laswell, chilled-out hippies and the ol’ dink dank doo.
-Peter Swenson
Bedouin Soundclash
Sounding a Mosaic
Canadian reggae band Bedouin Soundclash grabs you at the first note and doesn’t let go. Every track on Sounding a Mosaic is immediate, different and interesting. This is classic Bob Marley reggae but with faster rhythms, more sparing use of backup vocals and greater emphasis on bass guitar and drums. One of the best features of this album (besides the lyrics) is the rhythmic interplay between the vocals, guitar, bass and drums. Within its upbeat body-swaying melodies and lyrics, Sounding a Mosaic hauntingly portrays immigrant life in Canada, providing tonal glimpses of the social gaps and disparities existing between ideal and reality. Eon Sinclair (bass), Pat Pengelly (drums) and Jay Malinowski (guitar/vocals) are accomplished musicians. Bedouin Soundclash is touring college campuses as part of the The Side One Dummy College Tour presented by Fuse with Flogging Molly, Zox and the Whitest Kids You Know. Go see them in Portland on Monday, September 24th at the Roseland. This promises to be an awesome show.
-Joanna Hofer
Mushroomhead
Savior Sorrow
Mushroomhead is at it again, bringing a full-on attack of heavy distortion, low tunings and deep, guttural vocal spasms that make the elderly cringe and clutch their handbags. Savior Sorrow will be the first album to feature Waylon Reavis, formerly the front man of 3 Quarters Dead, on vocals. No reason has been given for the departure of previous lead singer, Jason ‘J Mann’ Popson, though the members of Mushroomhead are still going strong, and are expecting this album to surpass the underwhelming results garnered by their last two efforts, XX and XIII. Some of these expectations stem from the band’s alternation between heavy, crunchy riffs and letting a smooth side show every now and again, though the ferocious, dark, carnal feel doesn’t give way during the slower parts. If anything, the macabre tone is heightened with steadier, slower rhythms and spellbinding vocals that, with little warning, explode into raw screams and string-snapping riffs. Sadly, the forthcoming Savior Sorrowtour ?” which has Mushroomhead sharing the stage with SOiL, The Autumn Offering and Brand New Sin ?” will not be coming any closer to Portland than Seattle, where they are set to play at Studio 7 on Oct. 8.
To keep with the theme of diversity, the album will be released with seven different cover art schemes, each member contributing one cover which will depict their new on-stage masks – in correlation with the new album – and distorted for effect according to the member’s whim. Overall, while this album is nothing revolutionary, Mushroomhead has certainly stepped up its industrial-metal game, finding a new layer of force during pounding choruses, smoother shifts between tracks and more meaningful lyrics that can be joyfully hollered along with.
For fans of Korn, Slipknot and Mudvayne.
-Robert Seitzinger
ZOX
The Wait
There are two types of bad music: one type is just bland or boring but you can ignore it, like Kenny G or Yanni. This music is a minor annoyance, but can be avoided. The other type of bad music is aggressively, offensively bad, so distasteful that it’s impossible to ignore. This album is not that bad, but Lord, it ain’t good. Imagine the common elements of most songs from alt-rock radio: cliched lyrics, tired chord progressions, songs that try too hard to sound like already popular radio alt-rock songs. This is an average band that can’t decide who they’d rather steal from: Sublime, Foo Fighters or Weezer, so they steal from all of them, but not in a "talent borrows, genius steals" kind of way. This album simply rehashes the poor, lazy formula of mainstream rock, and adds trite, thoughtless lyrics about girls, girls, and girls, then blends it together to make a forgettable mix of well-produced radio fodder. Now, apparently this band has had some success, so there is an audience for them. It’s just not the audience who wants to hear something above average.
-Peter Swenson