Middle of the Night by Sabatta
Middle Of The Night | Sabatta
Styles: Grunge, Soul. I'm not joking.
Release: October 19, 2015
Length: 35 min.
The music of Sabbata takes many grungy influences, such as the aforementioned, some alternative, and a little Sabbath stoner. However, the vocals are totally Sly and the Family Stone, but a little less funky. And the cool thing is it works. The lead vocalist, Yinka, has a great soul voice which he decided to use for the unique purpose of "grunge soul."
The first track, "Politician," has a heavy grunge influence, almost a little too much. However, the vocalist gets his first chance to impress the listener with this strange combination. "Go And Be Damned" is a better track. It steers toward that Sabbath style stoner music I was talking about, and has better vocal compositions. "Let Off The Leash" was an alright track. The soul aspect was more heavily experimented upon. "The Last 5 Minutes" was great. Lyrically impressive, good structure, not as redundant, and some alternative influence. The title track experiments more on soul again. It carries a heavy use of symbols and a heavy guitar riff that unfortunately almost contradicts the soft feel of the rest of the song. "I Wanna" starts off with a soul-style guitar riff that's backed up by a dark and grungy bass riff. And then we find that the song steers closer to soul than anything, again. The drumming and bass playing are quite grungy, as well as the solo. "Always You" takes the alternative route while keeping the same drumming style as the previous. "Have a Go Hero" takes the sdame path as the first few tracks
There's nothing wrong with the songwriting or structure, but the band doesn't use their instruments for anything new other than being a soul grunge band. The vocals are great, however. I'm not big on soul, but I've heard enough to know a soul fan would be pleased with the vocals.
It seems like they didn't try hard enough to be a soul grunge band. In fact, it felt like the weren't entirely sure which direction to take. However, listening to this album has taught me that it can be done. They use some techniques that could work for both soul and grunge. So why not combine them? I imagine they could probably do a better job on the next album, if they decide not to go for a different style. They should practice hard enough to combine the two, so they could attempt pioneering a new yin and yang. Despite my criticism of the ":diversity," this is not to say the album was bad. Yinka's music has some heart to it, and you can tell he likes what he does. It's a fun album and it's worth playing.
81/100