KEY POINTS:
Rating: * * *
For band whose music barely breaks into a jog, The Black Seeds sure have kept up a decent pace on the recording front. This is the Wellington outfit's fourth album since 2001 debut Keep on Pushing - compare that to capital city roots cohorts Fat Freddy's Drop who are still heading towards their second studio outing - and their two previous albums sold double platinum locally and helped establish them in Europe where they've toured extensively.
Overall, this certainly reinforces the Black Seeds brand, one of festival-friendly brass-happy reggae with occasional dub/ funk excursions.
But it doesn't offer much that is truly memorable with too many songs blending in or lyrically blanding out - if you must rhyme "cool" with "fool", best not do it on an opening track. Especially one also proclaiming profundities about negativity not being a nice thing because "You know it takes some work to get that positive vibe"
Undoubtedly. But you do start to wonder as it drifts merrily on past if the Black Seeds are vibe over substance. Which may well be why they're so popular.
But the stock-standard reggae skankings which dominate the extended arrangements - Send the Message spends nearly six-plus minutes failing to dispatch much at all - seem more designed to keep them dancing down the front in Dusseldorf or Wanaka, than saying anything of themselves.
That said, when they flip into funk mode, as they do on the vibrant blast of Afrophone (with its shades of Dr John's Right Place Wrong Time), or the swampy squelch of Rotten Apple (which has a passing resemblance to the Alabama 3's Sopranos theme) it gives this Solid Ground the shake-up it desperately needs.
Russell Baillie
