Johnny Wishbone ignite this CD with a tribal funk that features modern rap and metal influences that pack enough bounce and spring to make a Slinky feel inadequate. Hip hop heavy vocals and soulful croons slide over top of sleek basslines and explicit percussive elements with a suave posture and fervent swagger. Strong influences of older Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Urge come to mind when listening to this album, along with a strong scent of 70's funk. Vocals strut with rap roots and scruffy soul, verses are usually rhymed out in sentences cut short and then backed up by a hummed word very similar to a funk sound of old. There's also a tendency to croon and out a verse and pause providing silence that the bass and guitar eagerly step up to fill in. Very versed in the funk and soul roots there's an inherently fixed vocal structure at play and it works out quite well with the upbeat tempos. Guitars shriek and grunt with parts that can range from Primus like guitar noodling to a lively strummed style reminiscent to the Red Hot Chili Peppers's days of old. For the most part there's a rigid smoothed out playing style used that affixes itself directly to the boisterous lowend churning out succulent musical soul. When called for there's even Wah Wah excursions and distorted crunch riffs to head up the slack, but it always seems a bit overshadowed by the vocals as well as the bass which is spirited with well rounded playing and head swaying grooves. Downtuned a bit lower than the guitar, the riffs strike with intense precision and saunter through the dense field of percussion. From slap and pop and muted notes all the way to looping fast paced rhythms that could possibly even tire out James Brown, they are without question the bands most catchiest musical aspect. Drums pound out a crisp beat with talented scaled down kit usage that is wrapped snugly in a thick envelope of tribal percussion that ends up boosting the scope of the bands material by leaps and bounds. Turntables show up now and then in the bands music with a standard hip hop scratch, but are done so sparsely that they barely deserve mention. The band directly siphons influences into a bucket which although can sometimes mix like oil and vinegar as it fills, does indeed provide an interesting journey. From beatboxing and head on groove to booming rap beats and funked out chants the Chili Peppers made famous, the group isn't afraid to have fun and step out of their element on this album, and direct proof of this appears in their bouncy cover of the Divinyls "I Touch Myself". Vocally there's some missed pitches and cheesy lyrical content at times, putting this album to be more in the vein of a party record than a naked musical expression, and unfortunately this gives the album a playful element that diminishes the ability for the music to tap directly into the listeners psyche. Although this could be a problem, the deft musicianmanship more than makes up for the blemish, even though the song structures suggest that more concentration was put into making the music as funky as possible rather than crafting a song. Johnny Wishbone have an impressive amount of talent and a firm handle on their instruments, if they can translate that skill over to improving their mildly tarnished song structures, the music's longevity would easily increase tenfold. If you're a fan of funk music or looking for a record that can serve as a timeline of funk & soul influences then definitely pick this one up, but if you're looking for something that connects on an emotional level you might want to look elsewhere.
(3.5 / 5)