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Written
by Mike Yoder, posted by blog admin
Six
albums deep into a rich, constantly evolving career Joe Olnick drops Downtown, perhaps his band’s finest work
yet. Instrumental bands have it tough
because even has a huge fan of instrumental music, some of my favorite bands
without vocalists I still find myself imaging vocal melodies too. Downtown has the distinct honor of not really
inspiring me to do that because I was so completely involved with the seven
tracks on offer here. From funk to jazz
to hard rock to ambient trance there’s a million different styles packed into
every inch of this record.
The
funky wah-wah guitars and concrete thick bass lines of opener “Downtown” builds
up a groovy head of steam in the first half.
Drummer Jamie Smucker lays into a pocket beat full of spectral cymbal
ghosting and jazzy snare marches while the song’s main groove eventually breaks
off and explores several varying outcomes.
Olnick’s guitar work morphs into wrap around blue leads as an autumnal
keyboard drone smothers the soulful licks and tight rhythms beneath a blanket
of truly offbeat drone. The two-part
“Philadelphia Moonlight” toys with opaque country strum, church organ and
bluesy rhythms before turning the corner into a funk chill-out that alternates
rural twang with extensive lead bits. In
this cut the rhythm section lays back and feels out the groove instead of
charging to the forefront. Joe’s guitar
work is always a centerpiece and the bassist and drummer play a very
complimentary role but do take chances to catch their own soloist style
grooves. Jamie Aston’s taut, kinetic
bass slaps forge their own direction on more than a few occasions throughout
this track. Returning a couple of songs
later, “Philadelphia Moonlight (Part Two)” is a
surprisingly creepy, eerie piece; more like an anxious horror movie score than
a relaxed moonlit funk jam. Joe Olnick
obviously likes taking risks and this like most of them pays off by altering
the album’s mood yet again in a very significant way.
“Food
Truck” is a suave, sexy mid-tempo funk number with a swaggering, dexterous
swing present in both the hard liner bass grooves and the wah-inflected guitar
surgery. Olnick coils his leads like a
cobra ready to strike and strike they do as the strictly jazz cymbal taps and
sneaky, off-time snare fills careen Joe’s licks straight at the listener’s
temples with wild reckless abandon. This
track just shows how playful these cats are with a groove and just how well
they know each other’s styles. Relying
on sparse guitar/bass notes and a very sleight of hand drum performance,
“Parkside” wrings every drops of goodness for a sparse lead-in that mesmerizes
its audience in the same way a hypnotist enraptures a client with a swinging
watch. Catharsis is reached in the cut’s
last quarter with Olnick really digging into a trippy solo and taking it all
the way to the bank. “Rush Hour” herds
the album back into the heady funk/rock/blues brew that is the band’s obvious
calling card before psychotic closer “Sports Complex” goes into a fury of
high-speed, riff-based hard rock.
Downtown is an eclectic
masterwork that always hits and never misses.
This is indeed the true definition of power trio though it’s Olnick’s
show and his writing and guitar work are a skyward highlight of the entire
affair. For anyone that’s looking for
instrumental rock that seizes the attention span without becoming background
music, this is exactly what you’re looking for.
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