Tasman Jude ADD

Review

Album Review: Tasman Jude - Gold

08/07/2016

"This album came from deep within our experiences as a hard touring and deeply relational band. It's an expression of joy, pain, truth, sorrow, love, struggle, fun, confusion, and hope. It's called Gold, and like the precious metal, we feel like as a band we have been put through the fire to create and share it with you."

What an introduction for a new release! The Canadian band Tasman Jude is back with a thing called Gold, the second of three concept albums (number one was Green in 2014 - guess what the third one will be called?). Nine tracks make us acquainted with the golden universe of the talented instrumentalists around the Trinidadian Caleb Hart, namely Derek Wilder (bass & didgeridoo), Jake Laviolette (djembe) and Pedro Acosta (guitar). In case the lead singer rings a bell... yes, you might have recently seen his name on the Maad Sick Reggaeville Riddim, where he contributed the song Always Remember.

But back to the tracks on Gold. After a didgeridoo-ed Intro that somehow closes the circle to the "Tasman" in their name, title track Gold calls all royal youths on a laid-back Reggae beat that switches to up-tempo halfway through. Genre-boundaries are not something Tasman Jude stick to, anyway. Apart from Gold and the meditative Take Us In, we experience a variety of styles. In the case of Western Culture, the wanna-be Dancehall went a bit wrong, despite the good, critical lyrics, and La Isla is a bit too much Island-Pop for my taste, but other pieces are great examples of how Reggae is creatively adapted around the world.

Palm Trees, for instance, comes on a riddim that might be considered something like Indie-Rock, with straight drums and great guitar soli. Likewise, Love Changes Everything, obviously an autobiographic tale, sounds as if we might have heard it on the radio before, and certainly is an explanation of the success the band celebrates on tours and album sales.

While New Revolution stirs up emotions by decrying things that go wrong in our world, Keep Climbing is a wonderfully calm, uplifting closing for an album that will make existing fans happy and new ones interested in this exceptional band. "Keep climbing, always try your best, keep climbing, don't forget to rest!"

Important footnote: for every album copy sold, Tasman Jude is donating a percentage to Music Heals (www.musicheals.ca) to further music therapy programs across Canada.