The Black Seeds - Solid Ground
New Zealand's reggae scene grew steadily after awareness of the music started to take hold in the '70s and Bob Marley and the Wailers touched down for a concert there at the end of the decade. The country's indigenous Maori people identified with the themes of hardship and struggle in the music and folks all across the spectrum enjoyed the riddims that backed the messages. Today, reggae-rooted New Zealand bands like Katchafire, Fat Freddy's Drop and Three Houses Down show the influence of the original Jamaican sound while finding their own voice as well. The Black Seeds have been popular in their New Zealand homeland for a number of years and a sizable draw in Europe, and with their CD Solid Ground now getting a wider release in such key areas as my American homeland, more of the planet will be treated to their combination of pulsating grooves, thoughtful lyrics and subtle expanding of reggae parameters. It appears to be no coincidence that The Black Seeds are both label and tour mates with American reggae band John Brown's Body: Solid Ground resembles JBB's best work as far as the music being unmistakably reggae and yet clearly created with a sensibility that does not seek to merely cop every move from the Jamaican playbook. In The Black Seeds' case, that means a recurring funk edge to the music, production that's equal parts latter-day Studio One and modern chill (lots of keyboards) and an approach to singing and songwriting that imitates no one. The vocals are often a solitary affair, to the point where harmonies or call-and-response are startlingly lovely when they do occur, and the approach allows simple yet potent lyrical sentiments like "people don't close the door on love" (from "Send A Message") to sink in amid thick, murky arrangements full of keyboard, guitar and horn hooks. This is one of those albums that doesn't benefit from anything resembling blow-by-blow descriptions, so I won't bother with such. Instead let me nail some key points: Every song in the disc's hour-plus running time is very good at least and excellent at best; the band is comprised of supremely skilled players and they show it by ending the album with an instrumental followed by a dub; the outer space design of the CD packaging is damn cool; and Solid Ground is as marvelous a work of modern reggae as you're likely to find in any corner of the world today. -Tom Orr