Review – SLF
The instrumentalists lock intensely together, like on the taut rhumba that ends the record, while other times, the soloists have to carry on their own rants: On “Seize the Time”, a saxophone burns itself out in a fury while the percussionists amble by, minding their own business. Female voices break out in Yoruba, and Chuckie Joseph sings his “Agua Dulce” over solo guitar. But where another band would turn these interruptions into a collage, Sonic Liberation Front just throw them into the mix, and the recording– which sounds as live as a gig at the local community center– never cues our responses or tells us which argument to agree with.
With a world of options laid out in front of them, Sonic Liberation Front chose exactly the right ones. Exceptionally written and arranged, Ashé a Go-Go runs through compositions that are as terse and muscular as they are diverse, and every new turn fits the band’s voices. While it’s not always right to judge music by the engineering, the engagingly physical sound is this album’s clincher: It’s exhilarating for its own sake, but too matter-of-fact to summarize a band that barely tries to describe itself.
