Review: Sun-Dried Vibes - Give Thanks

Personally, I never considered the implications of being sun-dried. That was only ever a designation reserved for Italian cuisine accoutrements. It sounds rather dour really. Being all dehydrated. South Carolina’s rock-reggae outfit Sun-Dried Vibes makes it out to be something (almost) completely different. Yeah you may be a little burned out, but only in the best way.

“With a positive mind you let your bright light shine,” sings Zach Fowler on “W.I.L.T.,” the group’s mission statement off the longplay, Give Thanks. And joined by Evan Tyler and Jono Cheverez, the three minds blend for an uplifting examination of a life spent living, not behind a desk.

Maybe it’s because we’re being convinced the only way to defeat the malaise is to flee to the 50th state, convincingly so by a group of guys from the South. Maybe because it’s 2016 and “Next Year” allows for a moment of escapism from whatever political fistfight we’re stuck in (Yeah, I’ll metaphorically turn a break-up song into a refuge from cable news, fight me. [Damnit, I’m part of the problem now.]). 

It’s everything in the fourteen tracks. Such as, “East Coast Rhythm.” We see Fowler and crew striping down the instruments and hitting the right chords with the addition of songstress Leigh Jackson, continuing to bridge the gap of a Cali-ready band working out of swampland. 

Basically, I’m never going to look at shriveled tomatoes the same again. What will I now find in them? Joy? Pleasure? If nothing else, possibly sweet relief from the mundanity of my fluorescent-soaked keyboard.

Check out Sun-Dried Vibes Give Thanks

Review: Swim in the Wild

Swim in the Wild can’t make up their mind. Who are they? They’ve got too much funk to be folk. Too many melodies to be saddled as alt rock. SITW can sure bring it when they want. But is “it” belting out choruses or harmonizing around a mandolin?

The quartet at times summons the force of many more men on songs such as “Hey Man” and “ Alone @last.” Choruses hit with gusto and power. “BACK WHERE THE WINDS STILL BLOWING ALL THE TIME,” or something like that. It doesn’t matter. You’re lending your voice right along with the crew’s.

And between getting out your angst you can get lost in made-for-jamming tracks. “Mars" predictably, and with utter enjoyability, uses negative guitar space to create room for roaming lyrics and percussion. A bass line does the work on “Funk: The System.” This is a system I need to be a part of.  

Then sometimes you can get both sides of SITW, like with “The Groove.” Some syncopated keys introduce the oscillating record that ebbs and flows between coffee house and Burning Man.

Sure, Swim in the Wild is erratic in genre. There’s no denying that. It’s also what makes them worth the time.

Listen to Swim in the Wild

Review: Meadowview - Like We Used To

It’s a shame Meadowview’s EP, Like We Used To, came out in late fall. This is summer music

I’m quick to classify the group’s sound as driving music. Windows down, contemplatively carefree, search the horizon music. The last stretch to the coast on Highway 210 music.

Sure there may be some heartbreak about. Some unanswered questions. where did it go wrong

At least that’s how the EP’s first two songs set up Meadowville. They sound eponymous to the band name. “You Don’t Know” is an attempt at escapism with a melodic hook. “It’s days like this I start to reminisce...I think about what I could have missed,” opines lead singer Rob Shoemaker while engulfed in his own guitar chords.

But then there’s a heel turn. “No Strings” digs in. We have turned the car around. We are returning to a woman who left us wanting, no, needing a week in the sand to get a total body sunburn to mask our inner thoughts with actual physical pain.

And as if right on queue, the short play closes out at the right tone. We’ve worked through every stage of coping. Michael Donohue (drums) and Kyle Spidel (bass) lead the way as Shoemaker punctuates every declaration with an appropriate riff on “Fine Line.”

Are we in a good place? I don’t know. But it feels like it.

And I’m definitely wrong about that whole summer thing. It’s a cold world.

Check out Meadowview Like We Used To

Review: Of Good Nature - Life Worth Livin

Of Good Nature doesn’t confine themselves to any specific genre, and you can hear why on Life Worth Livin, the band’s second full-length album. The freewheeling jam sessions that often accompany the quartet’s live shows seamlessly transition into tight compositions for the studio release that fluctuate between pop melodies and funk rhythms.

While the title track and opener is a veritable call-to-action, harkening back to English 2 Tone-era reggae with lyrics such as, “We used to be, ‘We The People”/Unity/The government’s changed entirely,” which seems extremely appropriate as “The People” are currently miring in an election cycle, Life Worth Livin is best taken in more loving doses.

Brandon Hucks’ trombone is easily the most recognizable (and welcome) feature of the group, but Cameron Brown’s vocals are both bold and comfortable when paired with the brass and sturdy, driving bass lines all over the cuts.

When all are combined on “The Other,” an idealistic ode to the perfect partner that includes Brown crooning, “It don’t matter what you wear,” it makes for an easy, danceable jolt of energy that hits you hard with surprising amounts of guitar riffs and percussion at those exact right moments you want, no, need them to.

And that’s basically the entire affair. Songs that make you want to move and look at things with a glass half-full mentality. Something we could probably all use more of.

Review: The Kodiak Brotherhood - Wild Ursus

“I’m only quiet when I have nothing to say,” admits H.L. Ruth on “Time,” the penultimate track to The Kodiak Brotherhood’s late 2013 release, Wild Ursus.

By then though we’ve gotten a taste of TKB: a raucous outlaw country outfit from Concord, N.C. With Ruth pacing the entire affair with casually big vocals and equally powerful slide guitar, a seasoned backdrop fills out the soundscape like a yellow-lit bar in the part of town that will never be gentrified.

Almost every member of the group has roots with other bands from the area (Ruth, The New Familiars; Chris Rigo, Sugar Glyders; Ben Robinson, Swift Robinson; Derek Furr, Goldfish Andy) yet come together like next of kin at an Irish wake.

That was the worst way of saying this is balls-out drinking music. Southern rock like it was meant to sound. Rollicking anthems that touch on love and loss and finding a new way. What The Kodiak Brotherhood does in an EP is more than most bands can muster with an album.

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