A semi-regular updated review collection of some of my hardest to find tunes.
I reckon I will start with a double review:
WarsawpacK
2001
Gross Domestic Product
1. Year Of The Car Crash
2. Diabolique
3. Survive
4. Ze Microfiche
5. Attention To Deficit
6. State Of Unconsciousness
7. Friday Night
8. Pause Song
9. Mauser
10. Valdez
11. Lotus Position
12. Doomsday Device
13. Dali
In 2001, a 7 piece jazz/funk/metel/hip-hop fusion project dropped their first full length (I am STILL trying to hunt down their criminally hard to find EP), entitled
Gross Domestic Product. A heavy, rocking, jazzier take on the Rage Against the Machine approach to hip-hop, WarsawpacK is both as intelligent and outspoken as Rage, as well as just as passionate and heavy.
A bombastic album that take metal infused jazz-funk, and fronts it by an insanely powerful and passionate emcee, who oozes articulate discontent with the worlds state.
At 13 tracks and 70 minutes long, the album is a rollercoaster ride of heavy and grooving music, that swirls around you like a psychadelic cloud of energy and impassioned lyrics. Lee Rabacks vocals are coherent, insightful, contemptuous and compassionate, backed perfectly by the bands complex and huge sound.
Of particular stand-out are the tracks,
Attention to Deficit, a clear call for awareness about the over-perscribing of drugs to the youth,
Pause Song, a beautifully haunting flute driven instrumental,
Mauser, arguably the albums heaviest and darkest track, and the 9.5 minute melancholic and heavy ode to the approaching global crisis (written 8 years ago).
2003 Stocks & Bombs:
1. Intro
2. Lump of Coal
3. Pig Dog
4. Mammon parade
5. All Fours
6. Pushing Hands
7. Wolfblitzer
8. War on Drugs
9. Rogue Nation
10. Nine
11. TV Eyes
12. Limited Time Offer
13. Hybrid
14. Market Steward Living
The bands second (and final) album, while shorter than the first, is even more intense and vituperative, with Rabacks rage and fear about the worlds path rising even further to the surface, making the album darker and edgier than GDP.
Taking the metal edge and sharpening it, the band achieves a superb balance with the vocals, bringing the whole thing to a rocking conclusion that will knock down, any fan of heavy(ish) intelligent and complex music.
With a number of stand-out tracks, this albums biggest flaw is no single track, rather it is the albums lack of length, rolling in at around 45 minutes, which in comparison to GDP feels a touch shortened.
Breaking up in late '04, the band cited the extreme difficulty of trying to support families on the life of an independant band.
For fans of:
Rage Against the Machine, the Blend, Audible Mainframe, K'naan, G Band Free
The band consists of: vocalist
Lee Raback, guitarist
Ajit Rao, bassist
Jaroslav Wassmann, tenor saxophonist and flautist
Simon Oczkowski, baritone saxophonist
Adam Bryant, turntablist
Aaron Sakala and drummer
Matt Cormier.
Last.FM
Myspace
The Myspace page includes, We Conquer, a track that never made it onto the full-length albums (which means it must be from the ephemereal EP.)