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Roots Nation - Temperature's Risin'
Roots Nation - Temperature's Risin'
Roots from the past brought to the here and now for a new generation of reggae fans to love.
Sampler
Initially released via iTunes in August last year Roots Nation’s album 'Temperature's Risin' has only really just started to make waves and stamp its mark in the reggae arena.
This band, that formed in 2003 and hails from New Hampshire in the USA, are trying to bring roots reggae back to basics on a driving engine of drum and bass, a stead fast trio of brass offset by melodic guitar, keys and percussion with three part vocal harmonies rounding it all off. They are heavily influenced by Studio 1 sound and guitarist Andy Bassford even has two guitars that have in his words “recorded countless hits for the likes of Dennis Brown, Horace Andy and Burning Spear to name but a few” plus he owns a Danelectro amp that once belonged to Coxsone himself. So with all this going for them have they actually achieved this? Well the answer is simply yes and in bucket loads.
Production is clean and understated allowing each instrument to hold its own ground and help create some genuinely timeless, easy flowing grooves. Roots reggae is obviously the core foundation here, but they are not afraid to spice things up with a bit of Ska shuffle or R&B blended in on pacier numbers like It's Serious and Only Human which features some very deft guitar work from Mr Bassford.
The lyrics cover familiar topics like sufferation, and combating the system with truth and rights but not from purely a Rasta point of view but rather keeping it all relevant and on a level that people globally can relate to. Lead singer and trombonist Greg Pearlman delivers these lyrics in a soft, yet gruff and at times almost spoken manner that can be quite plaintive, especially on Shark Attack as he sings of watching out for the bad things and people that can come your way in life. To offset his dourness Julie DiOrio provides some shimmery accents that find the two complimenting each other much like sugar and spice.
The vocal side of the album finishes unfortunately with two of the weakest cuts in Chalice of Love with its rapped lyrics and Minutiae, a song that is lyrically good as it focuses on the small details of life and how they can have great effect, but for me leans to heavily on a synthesized sound that gives it a dated feel. This is then followed by four dubs that add echo and snippets of the original vocal here and there, but where the understated production that works well with the vocal cuts perhaps a bit more flamboyance on these would really make them standout on their own.
Roots Nation are without doubt a group of very talented musicians. Not all of the songs here work for me, but these small negatives don’t take away the fact that the bigger picture is of a good, solid roots album that takes heed of the past and brings it right into the here and now for a new generation of reggae fans to love.
The CD 'Temperature's Risin' can be purchased directly from the rarerootsrecords.com or on the Roots Nation website.
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