Indubious – Cosmic Seed
Reviewed by Sadie O., 4/7/10
Reggae from Oregon; a trio of psychedelic hippies, should really suck but it’s actually occasionally brilliant. They can be a bit love & peace preachy, and this CD is marred by a couple of tracks with vocoder, but they’re fine musicians and really mean all that preachy stuff – and when they’re on (e.g., track 15) they’re right on.
No FCCs detected. I like 8 and 15 best – 9 would be great too, if it was longer.
1. 5:04 ***downtempo, simple one-drop, adds layers, nice mellow groove. Psychedelic fuzz guitar at the end.
2. 3:23 ***electronics and toast intro, then fast keyboard-based dancehall groove, rapid-fire vocals.
3. 4:18 **pounding intro, then classic rub-a-dub groove with tinkly piano. Several dancehall voices.
4. 3;57 ***odd combination of medieval-sounding instrumentation and modern R&B style processed vocals. Downtempo one-drop.
5. 4:15 **midtempo, militant skank, intro diatribe in American English, guest dancehall vocals by Prezident Brown.
6. 3:25 *jaunty, upbeat midtempo skank, minus points for vocoder. Too bad, cause the riddim is fun.
7. 4:34 **rather overly sweet keyboards, pretty skippy little bubble – sounds a bit like a 60’s British Invasion pop tune to a Reggae beat.
8. 4:33 ****dramatic keyboards, grows into a great sound with dubby bits. Some really COOL dubby bits, in fact. Nice!
9. 1:09 ***funk disco groove with monster bass – way too short!
10. 5:24 **swingy midtempo bubble.
11. 3:54 ***fine midtempo skank – sounds like a Black Uhuru riddim, very tough. Actually flows right into the next track, which is kind of the toast – really like a 12” single.
12. 3:45. *** see above.
13. 3:24 **odd electronic riddim, made up war sounds, then uptempo dancehall something – strange sound, but rather groovy (except for bits of processed vocals.) I’m definitely getting stoned just listening, though
14. 5:10 ***I thought it was going to be “Sea Cruise” for the first couple of seconds… Turns into very bouncy skipping bubble, fun sound. Dubby bit with ocean sounds…
15. 5:19 *****squonky, stoned keyboards. Then FUNKY bass and horns. Oh yeah, this is the hit! Deeply hippie-psychedelic lyrics. I’ll even forgive them the “fun guy” pun – this is seriously great shit.