Face First - Tribal Tech

Nov

25

Face First - Tribal Tech

≡ Category: 1990s, Fusion, Recommended, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

Face First (on the Mesa/Bluemoon label) sounds an awful lot like Tribal Tech’s previous release, 1992’s Illicit. They had not really made the transition to mostly improvised song forms that would mark 2000’s Rocket Science. Nothing wrong with that, but there aren’t really a whole lot of surprises here. Just a lot of crunchy, groovilicious fusion.

That said, even though there’s a lot of groove tunes on Face First, they are still actual compositions, with chord changes and melodies and structure. It’s not just endless vamping.

Scott Henderson’s guitar work is even more soaked in the blues than it was before, prefiguring his first blues album the following year, Dog Party.

In fact, the biggest surprise on Face First is an out and out blues tune, Boat Gig, with a perfectly competent vocal by drummer Kirk Covington. It’s actually pretty funny. I saw Scott Henderson on a boat gig with Gary Burton’s band, so the lyrics have a context for me. Basically, it’s all about the torture of a shredder like Henderson having to wear a tux and play soft because boat gigs are basically for lame rich white people who want background music to go along with their cruise.

The rest of the tunes have the usual influences, predominantly Weather Report. Again, nothing wrong with that.

One of the most interesting tunes in the set is Salt Lick. It starts out with a through composed series of ferocious melodic statements before heading into a rather jolly blues form. Then there’s a swing section that morphs into a slow blues. And the tune continues like that, mutating as it goes. It’s pretty cool.

Tribal Tech varies their usual attack a little with Revenge Stew, which has a Cajun feel to it.

In the end, what Face First amounts to is another predictably fine outing from Tribal Tech, with wizardly musicianship from Scott Henderson, Gary Willis (bass), Kirk Covington (drums), and Scott Kinsey (keyboards). If I don’t sound more excited about it, it’s probably because I’ve been listening to Tribal Tech for twenty years and it’s all pretty familiar at this point, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good.