Audiodub
Audiodub, a reggae-rock trio out of San Francisco has crafted what needs to go down as one of the best reggae-rock records of 2009. Seamlessly employing classic techniques previously used by No Doubt, Reel Big Fish and Sublime while maintaining its own sound and never mimicking any one band's style. This is not an easy feat in today's music world where a lot of music just runs together, but the guys in Audiodub use it to explore its own sound, and I can't help but love it.
Depending on who you are and what you like, you may either think this is a good record or a great one. Audiodub has all the classic reggae-rock sounds for you people that fear change, but for those of us that love musical exploration within a genre, this is pretty nice.
To start us off I feel I must mention the title track Daytime TV, this is a great song for you classic reggae-rock lovers. The band name drops every god awful daytime TV show that you love to hate, every sitcom from the past 30 years that is on syndication on the most random channels and a line about getting it on with Judge Judy. But the coup de gras has to be at 2:14 seconds when in the background you can hear the sample of a Billy Mays commercial who as you all know died very recently. Rest in Peace my pitchman friend.
Moving on to one of the most infectious tracks, Save Your Soul, this is not infectious in the way that reggae is. This is infectious in the way that you can't get it out of your head. Almost indie, very KEXP (radio station in Seattle, among the top 5 independent radio stations in the country). Then nearing the end there's this recorded speech thing, not quite sure what it's from but it works amazingly. But what I love about this track is how it seems perfect for a tour video of these guys. By the way, kudos to whoever chose the samples for this record, there's not a lot of samples, which is great, but what samples there are fit so well.
To wrap things up, I feel you need to know about two tracks in particular, Stop This Train and The Last Banana. It's hard in the world today to not at least have a few songs about political or social issues, and if Stop This Train is any indication of what Audiodub can do with that topic, I'd love to see more. Kicking off with this key section that transforms into a guitar strumming, and the lyrical content sort of has this pseudo-national anthem for the reggae-rock community vibe to it. Now while I love this song, it's pretty out of place as far as content because there's nothing it goes with. Does it hurt the record? Not even a little bit. Does it add to the record's sound? You betcha.
The Last Banana, now I'm somewhat guilty to the "ooh-ahh" affect of song titles. I did check out this song for the sole fact the title is The Last Banana, and this time it worked, as it's a great song (but in the future don't listen to a song because of the title, because quite often it's a miss, word to the wise). Great rhythm, great lyrical flow, there's a very short breakdown about 1:50 into the song with some reggae drums and some keys (they're faint but they're there). This song is about as Sublime, as this sometimes Sublime cover band gets.
Young bands quite often, through no fault of their own, fall into a trap and that is not varying their lyrical content enough. Singing too much about politics, social issues, parties, girls, whatever. Audiodub avoids that trap somehow. Does anyone else foresee these guys on tour with Pepper at some point? I sure do. Also, Audiodub's bassist, Jordan Fezier, yeah his bass is top-notch.
(from www.thepier.org) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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