Welcome to My Party
Rusted Root
Island Records
Rusted Root makes me happy.
Regardless of a prealigned prejudice in favor of the musicians' percussive, African and Latin-American and reggae-influenced sound, I jumped at the chance to attempt an impartial review of the hippie-looking funksters. If nothing else, it's a rocking excuse to blow $15.
The Pittsburgh sextet brings back vocalist, guitarist and drum-banger Jenn Wertz (who left the band after When I Woke's release) and ropes in a heavy-handed production effort for its fifth full-length album. Welcome to My Party doesn't have as much of a free sound as the Root's previous efforts. It doesn't even have a percussion instrumental. Take the changes as you will (whoa -- the last track has some techno mixed with those African drums), but this is still very much a Rusted Root album. You can dance to it.
If you could compare crowd-pleasing levels for any of Welcome's tracks to "Send Me on My Way," the closest you would get is "Union 7." It laces wah-ya-ing guitar with a groovy funk beat but has many more layers. While layers aren't a bad thing, Rusted Root's pure simple music sensibility is given up for the advantages of being in a studio.
The band brings back "Artificial Winter" (first featured on '96's Cruel Sun) for the sixth track with a slightly slower tempo but the same uplifting tune to thoughtful lyrics. Rusted Root exemplifies its strength in mixing passion with musicianship in this track -- Michael Glabicki sings "A father cries out into the night / As his child slips away," but the composition (these tunes are too complex to be called just songs) threads feelings of loneliness, depression and a sort of confidence purely with sounds.
Welcome to My Party mixes the band's sunshine-barefoot-in-the-field-happy tunes with more contemplative songs, as always. "Artificial Winter" is followed by "Too Much," a story of love with keys and a tin whistle and a catchy chorus giving it a bright quality.
One of the most interesting songs on the album is "People of My Village" -- think Root with a deejay. The techno rhythms don't cast shadows on Rusted Root's trademark sound but rather give the band another outlet for sound. And the beats of drummer Jim Donovan (who bopped through Bloomington recently for his touring drum clinic) still punch through.
Overall, Rusted Root's backbone lies in musicianship. These musicians know how to combine just the right instruments from their large arsenal to get the sound to express the feelings they're going for. That's what it's all about. Even without the lyrics, you won't have to search for the songs' meanings -- Rusted Root knows that you can be lonely and confident and passionate at the same time.
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