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Album Review
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All Music Guide , Album Review >>
Fat Freddyąs Drop
Live at Roundhouse London
The Drop
DRP017
2010
***
In the studio, this New Zealand band plays extended reggae-disco-soul jams
that feature soully falsetto vocals and jazzy horn arrangements. In a live
situation, they play even longer extended jams (averaging about thirteen
minutes each on this album) and fold big wet dollops of dub into their
trademark blend of soul, reggae and R&B grooves. The results are mixed, but
generally rewarding. łThe Camel˛ opens the album with a nice horn chart but
a rather boring sung melody and an inexplicably plodding beat. łThe Raft˛
enlivens things considerably, bringing a lighter one-drop beat and very
soulful vocals and lots of dubwise sound effects to the mix before lapsing
into a martial steppers rhythm. łFlashback˛ and łPull the Catch˛ are the
albumąs most solid tracks, the latter alternately spare and jazzy, the
latter featuring a gorgeous horn interlude halfway through before suddenly
blossoming into a jungle-inflected dub section. Singer Joe Dukie quotes the
Congos near the end of that one<a nice touch. łThe Nod˛ is built on a slow
rockers groove with contrastingly fleet-fingered, funky horns, and the album
ends with a real curiosity: łShiverman,˛ which spends its first twelve
minutes in a ho-hum house-dub mode and then suddenly shifts into a jaunty
ska groove for the final three minutes. Overall, this is a fine live album
that was probably an amazing experience in person<but newcomers to the Fat
Freddyąs Drop experience will likely want to start out with some of the
bandąs more disciplined (but still adventurous) studio work.
09/16/10 >> go there
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