KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * * *
Label: Little Bushman
Verdict: Second quality trip from band fronted by former TrinityRoots main man
Music is Warren Maxwell's religion. He professes as much in the song Holy Ground when he whispers, "This thing I can not touch, this thing I can
not see, this thing called ... music."
Then, with that word, Little Bushman kick into the gospel according to them.
If you were to jump off a building at this very moment you'd be floating up there like an angel, bro, and instead of playing a harp you'd be blowing a saxophone.
We first felt the psychedelic spirituality of Maxwell's music when he was the leader of TrinityRoots. When they split up in 2005 he went on to form Little Bushman, also made up of brothers Joe (guitars) and Tom (bass/violin/cello) Callwood and drummer Rick Cranson, which retained the rootsy sound but took on improvisational, jazz, and unashamed Jimi Hendrix influences.
In contrast to the Bushman's 2006 debut, The Onus of Sand, a crazy and often noisy and nutty epic with 12-minute long Jimi as its centrepiece, Pendulum is a more traditional song-based album.
Not too conventional though. Little Bushman are not content unless they are pushing musical boundaries, as the whacked-out jams that bring Holy Ground and Mary to an end.
Nature of Man rumbles along, then with a long outburst of modern day prog rock, flashes of saxophone squall (like something the Mars Volta might come up with) it blends into Corrupt Demeanour with a beautiful piano transition. However, the latter track is the weakest part of Pendulum because the lyrics are too blatant for such a gorgeously delicate song. "I want to drive a Beema, don't give a f*** about the rest of the world," coos Maxwell who is possibly singing about some rich bitch who has run him off the road on one of his trips back from Wellington to his home in the Wairarapa.
Whatever the story behind the song, the words sound out of place and the F word would have been better saved for the savage psychedelia of War.
At times Pendulum is an album of stunning static beauty (The Seed and The Seed (Pt2)), simple singer/songwriter ditties (Peaceful Man), and then it can pick you up and take you on a trip (Holy Ground). It's also heartening to see bands like Little Bushman releasing an album annually. Admittedly their debut was a while in the making as they recorded it three times, but it's been almost a year to the day since Sand was released.
This year Little Bushman were victims of the biggest travesty at the music awards when The Onus of Sand was overlooked as a finalist in the best Aotearoa roots album category - and best album category for that matter. Let's hope Pendulum will get the brothers the big ups they're owed.
