Music - Album Review

 

IQ Albuquerque NM Music Preview
November 2007

The type of hip hop that 40 Watt Hype plays could only come from the state of California. Sure, people will compare them to The Roots, which is justifiable, but it’s mostly because the band, which includes Brian Robinson (Vagabond), Jared Dyar (percussion), Adan Infante (trombone), Sean Alderette (drums), Aaron Wall (MC AWALL) Enrique Gonzales (guitar) and Bronson Garza (bass), performs with live instruments. Others will point to their Latin leanings and bring up less applicable and predictable comparisons to Santana and still others will mention how 40 Watt hype sounds similar to the Black Eyed Peas in terms of kinetic energy both on stage and on record. The truth is, 40 Watt Hype sound exactly like themselves, which always seems to be a problem when it comes to hip-hop; not so much for fans of the genre, but for the recording industry, radio and critics like myself who need to come up with new words to describe fresh new music.

As they boast in song, “we are true players but we don’t play, the same way that you play.” Still an unsigned act (but likely not for long), the group outwardly criticizes the inner workings of the music industry in song and (annoyingly) in skit, but to do it with such unforced flair and stately fashion that the music is less about the words and more about the groove.

Instrumentally, the groups is stacked to the gills with enough horn, key, percussion and rhythmic armor to spontaneously start a New Orleans street party. But whats’ apperant in listening to tracks from the group’s latest recording Strong Feet on the Concrete, they are simply a well rehearsed group that happens to know the secret to onstage success: restraint. Never coming off as ostentatious, the group still manages to flip the wigs of many listeners.

Along with that, they stay down to Earth in an over-hyped genre that floats like a million dead fish- as evidence in lyrics like “In this Animated world, spinnin’ in its axis, life death and taxes/we wll wanna know the answers to questions under the sun/but all we really need to know is one”. Their message oozes positivity and unity, and their relaxed sound matches that message in beats, but not to the point of an Arrested Development. In other words don’t start singing Kumbaya just yet.

There’s been many hip-hop group’s such as this in the past and there will likely be many more, but the Billboard charts never seem to find room for them until they approach Fugees status.

Unfortunate, but for those that like to keep their favorite bands a secret, they now have 40 Watt Hype to add to that list.