Bay area quintet Rise of Saturn presents a sonically adventurous, well-arranged and overall cohesive debut full-length that's also one of several local LPs successfully funded via a Kickstarter.com campaign. The band took the earnings from their 89 backers and hit Zen Studios early this year to record Sex, Drugs and Comic Books with producer/musician Steve Connelly.
The self-styled "prog hop" quintet changes up their style and pace throughout the album, sometimes within a single track, and fuse elements of funk, prog rock, alt metal, hip hop, ska-reggae, and Latin jazz into a vibrant and intoxicating sound that has both substance and flavorful appeal.
Frontman Brad Gilmore is a potent presence who slings together rhymes in an assertive, easy-sliding flow and sings in a husky soulful boom or croon, offering up humorous, semi-earnest observations and narratives on subject matter that, as the album title implies, generally touches on sex, drugs, and rock n' roll (or some combination of the three). He also plays a mean trumpet and adds his brassy embellishments to the band's propulsive grind along with multi-instrumentalist Dan "Disqo" Cano, who joins on sax when he's not bringing percussive textures into the mix or providing supplemental beat-keeping to main drummer Pablo Liparoto's own rhythmic foundation. Guitarist Eric Douthirt dispenses nuance and flavor, whether he's running through intricate arrangements, pedal-warped solos, or island-tasty riffs, and Ivan Peña doles out nasty and sexy grooves, and sings support in a post-hardcore/emo-pained wail.
There are few misses here. Each track has something tasty and appealing to offer – the hilarious douchebaggery of the womanizing protagonist in the sexy rock groovin' "Nah, Son!" ("Sex is the only thing I love, 'cause I'm that dude"), the epic horn-driven progressive ascension of "And The Truth Will Set You Free," the funkadelic ditty with a vampire narrator ("God Hates Fangs"), the heavy sinister feel and rising tension of the album's apocalyptic closing track, "The Last Box of Twinkies on Earth," its narrator bitten by a zombie and awaiting his impending state of undeath. (Mohawk Bomb Records, riseofsaturn.mohawkbomb.com) HHHH and 1/2 Stars
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2011.