If the opening track on the self-titled debut by the Taipei-based ska band, The Wall Tigers, doesn't have you skanking around your apartment then you're probably dead. Ooo Ooo Ooo is a four-and-a-half-minute cracker of a party tune filled with plenty of brass noise and reggae licks.
In fact, the entire album is a ska-fuelled ride from start to finish, with Taiwan's only aficionados of the reggae offshoot releasing a debut that is nearly impossible to find fault in. Blending different types of ska, from its Jamaican roots, through late 1970s UK revivalism and onto the recent US pop/ska crossover, the album has something for everyone.
With happy-go-lucky lyrics and a brass-section that never misses a beat The Wall Tigers' execution of hardcore ska numbers such as Monkey Song, Two Boats and Do You Wanna To Dance? is faultless.
Not that it's all up-beat up-tempo ska. Tunes such as Betelnut Beauty, Breakfast and Walk in the Sun see the band shifting down a gear and playing less boisterous, but still entertaining and witty material.
Regardless of tempo, however, the tight and brilliantly produced debut album proves that band is one to watch out for whenever it plays live.
Formed in the early 1990s by bassist, Bob Vennum and jazz vocalist, Lisa Kekaula, The Bellrays and its snarling guitar driven soul sound first began to make an impact on the West Coast indie/punk scene in 1996.
Drawing on the recent success enjoyed by other punk/soul crossover bands such The Dirtbombs in Europe; the California four-piece has recently begun to build-up a sizable following on both sides of The Atlantic. The Bellrays latest studio album, Meet the Bellrays, has already managed to eke its way into European indie charts.
Using the odd mix of James Brown-styled soul and the guitar-laden angst of 60s punk bands such Radio Birdman and The Stooges; the Bellrays music is best described as rough and raw with rounded edges.
Of the album's 14 tracks not one is blooper. From the moment the opener, Too Many Houses in Here kicks in, the ferocious guitar of Tony Fate and the pounding caveman-like pounding of Ray Chin's drums assault listeners in an almost obscene manner. Early-style punk spews forth on tunes such as Fire on the Moon and Under the Mountain, while tunes such as the catchy They Glued Your Head On Upside Down and Killer Man see the band belting out some of the fieriest snarling guitar driven soul to be found anywhere.
Whatever direction the band takes it's the vocal prowess of Kekaula's that remains the backbone of the band's sound, however. While Chin, Fate and Vennum kick-up a one hell of racket, without the punk/soul crossover clout of the jazz trained vocalist it's pretty safe to say that The Bellrays would be just another garage band.
After the Lips' disappointing 1999, The Soft Parade, it looked as if the years of drug use, abuse and addiction had taken its toll on Wayne Coyne, Steve Drozd and Mike Ivins.
Oklahoma's Lips had gone off on tangents far removed from that of the bands' drug-soaked brilliance of its 1985 self-titled debut, The Flaming Lips, through to the oddball but breakthrough 1997 four CD set, Zaireeka.
A hiatus of three years sees Coyne and company returning to the fold still in warped, yet mellower and certainly more radio-friendly mood for the band's 12th album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
RSS