2020, Loop
My Brother
Why Oh Why
Boy King
Yes I Do
Never Give Up
No Roots
IJDK
Operator
My Baby
Early Bird
Natural (Acoustic)
Natural
L.A.B is one of the newer names in the well-established New Zealand reggae scene, and they themselves are now fairly well-established and a favourite mainstay at music festivals. Their style reflects the popular musical climate in NZ, being somewhere (but nowhere specific) in the wider ‘barbecue reggae’ space. L.A.B has six albums, each titled with Roman numerals, and while all of them are good, IV stands in class of its own. This goes for both the music as well as the album cover which is one of my all-time favourites.
IV is a good representation of their mixture of reggae, funk, soul, a bit of rock. Whatever grooves goes. Although they are a little more cross-genre than many acts that like to brand themselves as ‘cross-genre’, the L.A.B brand is remarkably recognizable, to the point that after a couple albums you can hear something as benign as a chord progression and think man that's so L.A.B. Lyrically there is not too much to talk about, there is even a bit of ‘woah oh oh’ and ‘you got me on my knees begging please’, but it's barbecue reggae after all. So long as the music is groovy, creative, fun, musically exciting and widely accessible, we have a winner.
Highlights on this record are often less reggae-coded than other tunes, with My Brother and Never Give Up being two especially hard-hitting soulful tunes; the former in particular does an excellent job of setting the tone of the record in both lyrics (Everybody's working hard in the nine-to-five, I just want some music in my life) and musical development, with excitement coming seemingly from nowhere as the tune progresses through a totally even groove. The magic lies in the details - mostly the strings and arps. No Roots is the rootsiest tune, done in one-drop style, and will please any reggae fan regardless of how much they enjoy the Pacific style. Operator and My Baby are so L.A.B, and the double-closer of the record is one of the greatest finales out there. Early Bird occupies the least prestigious and memorable part of any album - just before the end - and it has a very intense instrumental climax at the end of the tune to sell its worth, followed by some fourth-wall-breaking studio-ambience muttering of “that's the take” before we get into the finale of Natural, which is presented with the acoustic instrumental version FIRST and the full band version SECOND. Going from high intensity to low intensity to medium intensity at the end of an album like this logically seems like a bad idea but the result is delicious, made even more so by Natural being such a beautiful and memorable piece. Well-written, simple, memorable tunes really is the name of the game with L.A.B (and a very sensible direction for Pacific reggae) and IV is their best showcase of it yet.
Bim count: 0
My picks: My Brother, Yes I Do, Never Give Up, Natural
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