Dub is a Weapon – Vaporized
Reviewed by Sadie O., 7/30/11
Roots Rock “Live Dub” from NYC. Dave Hahn, who rides the faders on the band, has worked with Antibalas and Easy Star All-Stars, and the band has more recently backed Lee Scratch Perry on tour. With that pedigree, you’d expect them to be musically excellent and well produced, and they are. All tracks excellent, good for soundbeds as well as dub-wise ear-candy in their own right. All instrumentals except track 5 (Rob Symeon guests). No FCCs.
1. 6:05 **big intro, midtempo skank with lots of jangly little noises.
2. 7:04 ***slightly uptempo skank, tuneful bassline, pretty saxes.
3. 6:36 **uptempo and upbeat, almost ska. Farfisa solo! Fairly complex time signature.
4. 5:45 ***midtempo skank with a bit of wahwah and very luxurious sounding horns. Bongos! Super nice…
5. 5:24 ****downtempo sway with really cool vocals that work as part of the instrumentation, and some hard rock guitar. Emphatically minor key, grunty bass – perfect.
6. 5:54 ****fast stepping razor skank with all sorts of woobly noises and stuff. Talking cuica? How can anyone not love a talking cuica?
7. 7:35 **midtempo sway with a slight hint of foreboding behind the paper parasols in the tiki drinks. The guitar and bass get really dangerous after a while.
8. 4:23 **uptempo stepping razor skank with attractive modulations.
9. 7:49 ****tough downtempo skank with lots of rather menacing noises. Including theramin. Nuff said!