The Aggrolites come bouncing back onto the reggae world’s radar this month with the release of their fourth studio album, highly originally named “IV”. This is their third release off Hellcat Records, working for whom they have also been generous enough to provide the backing music for Tim Armstrong’s solo album “A Poets Life” a couple of years back.

IV follows The Aggrolites tradition of getting as much music onto one CD as possible, as they have managed to squeeze 75 minutes and 18 seconds of music onto the standard 80 minute CD. Considering the average album length for most bands would be a (comparatively paltry) 45-50 minutes, you are getting a lot of music for your money. The down side to this is that across the 21 tracks on the album there is simply not enough variety to make this a compelling record to listen to. Listening to it in the car on the way to work, you can hear song after song that sounds very similar to one you heard a short while before.

This is not to say there aren’t any ‘gems’ on the record – far from it. The opening track, Firecracker, is quite a jaunty number – and a bit of a jangly open different to that you would expect from hearing The Aggrolites previous work. This is (unsurprisingly) followed by track two, What A Complex, which slows it down a bit and gets that little bit more soulful. However, these two tracks effectively represent a good two thirds of the album to me, as a lot of the rest of it sounds quite like one or the other.

If you think back to Tim Armstrong’s album A Poets Life, you can see that with a bit of direction, this band can definitely do some fine work – but without the influence of a pro from outside the group, The Aggrolites are sadly lacking slightly in the creativity department. To my ears, IV sounds fairly similar to the bands previous release in 2007, Reggae Hit L.A., despite the couple of lineup changes the band have had since the release of that album (the bassist J. Bonner quit the group in August ’07, only for his replacement David Fuentes to die in late September of that year – the new bassist is Jeff Roffredo, formerly of Tiger Army).

Other than the couple of tracks mentioned above, the remaining highlights for me would be Runnin’ Strong (a throaty, powerful skank-fest of a song), Soul Gathering (a purely musical adventure, with no vocals – just a bouncing odyssey of synthetic harmonies and hooks) and the closing track, It’s Gonna Be OK. The album finishes on a brilliant mellow and reflective number that you just can’t keep from nodding along to. Indeed, a lot of the album has at the very least that effect on you – as background music that you aren’t really listening to or focussing on, I think it’s perfect. But if you’re looking for something to get you dancing, or even in the mood for dancing, then this album is not the one for you.

SkaMutiny Rating: 2/5




Andy

Decent review, sir, even though I thoroughly disagree

I can see if you don't listen to this type of music it might not be as accessible as, say, ska-punk. But this is so well created, and when you start stripping it down, you realise just how much is going on.

I personally think Jesse Wagner has a superior voice to Tim Armstrong, and can't help but think this record steals a lot of the thunder from the new Rancid record. Talk about the student bettering the teacher.

I do like his voice, I shall agree with your old bones on that. But the music just isn't quite varied enough for my tastes. Flick through the tracks and listen to the first 5 seconds of each. Okay its hardly the longest comparison, but they all start with a drum hit, then a... run of drum hits... (yes I don't know the technical terms!!!) then into the music. A small point I know, but a valid one I feel!

Al wrote:. But this is so well created, and when you start stripping it down, you realise just how much is going on.

Sounds like something you could say about The Slackers also.

PS. I've met Jesse.

Yep. The Slackers, The Aggrolites, Westbound Train: all absolutely phenomenal without being immediately 'hit' friendly. Actually, that's just about my dream gig bill right there.

Too right, it would be sweet.

Just downloaded this, sounds like a 75min long song. Can someone recomend a better album of theirs?

brucestorm wrote:Just downloaded this, sounds like a 75min long song. Can someone recomend a better album of theirs?

Their debut album, I think its the one with the red tiger on the front...if thats the one, its boss.

I absolutely love the Aggrolites. There's very few white men out there with as much soul in their voice as Jesse Wagner.

Their self titled album (which was actually their second) is one of my favourite ska releases of recent years, it's completely spot-on with mixing reggae, soul and simple old-skool ska. Perfect summer music in my opinion.

Think i'll be picking up IV on Wednesday when I get paid.

It ain't ska its reggae.

The first album is the best by far.

Definately one of my favourite bands at the moment.

MidlandsDan wrote:It ain't ska its reggae.

There's a very fine line between the two at times and for me, the Aggrolites are one band that span that line frequently.

hell nothing to stop a song beeing both reggae And ska, only realy difernace if you want to be anal bout it is the walking base line.

midlands dan is so ska!

I heard a rumour that he's even more ska than Aaron Barrett.


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