The hard-to-categorize group Band of Bees (formerly The Bees) hail from the Isle of Wight, and island on the south coast of England, where they wrote, performed and recorded their debut album 'Sunshine Hit Me,” in a shed out in their backyard.
BOB consists of 23-year-old Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher creating pop music infused with, dub, jazz, soul, funk, and South American rhythm. Sounding like early Bob Marley recordings featuring the Beta Band and Ween hitting the smack with Curtis Mayfield.
A gentle music box intro kicks into the amazing and addictive opening track 'Punchbag' with deep sonic bass, jazzy trumpets, a laid back beat and groovy lyrics singing 'Use Me like a Punch Bag / I'm too much for a cage of monkeys / Here they come from the hole / In the back of my head / Very Carefully I stand / And I'll say I'll call again.
'Angryman' hits the 70's Superfly with funk bass and soul vocals Mayfield would be proud of, singing 'Angry Man / Thats the hurt thats in your head / Thats the man you just met / May not be a Brighter Day / But there'll be on the way / An angry man needs attention / Contact and Direction' on top of strutting organs and funkadelic guitar, and screaming sax solo.
'No Trophy' takes a turn with a reggae dub feel, reminiscent of early work of Bob Marley.The miss-matched styles at first seem a bit strange but after a few listens it fits into this strange debut.
'Sunshine' one of my favorite tracks, starts with shimmering keyboards that take of into a 70's rocking jam, then drop back and explode again with trinkling piano and gorgeous melodies. The lyrics are easy to sing along to, 1, 2, 3, Let's go! repeat after me . . . 'S U N S H I N E.'
The band covers the fun filled upbeat jam “A Minha Menina' by Os Mutantes, and bossa nova 'This Town' with it's shuffled beat, strummed guitars, and a lush organ holding it together as the repeated chorus sings 'everyone's free.'
The carnival waltz 'Sweet Like a Champion' is layered with haunting vocal harmonies, and lush piano and beautifully picked acoustic guitars against lightly tapped drums and an eerie organ. This song has a Nick Cave/Bauhaus sound with a Beta Band feel sailing away to the undiscovered territories.
The dreamy sound-scape 'Lying in the snow is takes the place of a morphine drip in the arm as you pick your next soundtrack for your wisdom teeth removal.
'Zia' is the perfect music to eat your candlelight dinner to, with a little Bolero mixed in the background as you poor a room temperature glass of vino.
Closing the album is 'Sky Holds the Sun' moves like a swan across the lake with bursts of horns and gentle lyrics 'I want to hold you like the sky holds the sun.' Which sounds like poetry to me.
The Band of Bees has succeeded in blowing my mind with this amazingly versatile debut. The US version of the disc contains a bonus track 'You Got to Leave.'
|