...Attention all of you green-hair-faded-grey punk rockers, Bad Brains have returned to replenish the ranks of the faithful with the LP Build a Nation, scheduled to hit the streets on June 26th so lets dive right on into the fray...the set begins with the appropriately titled "In the Beginning" which sails on out of the speakers informing the listener that the Brains are back and the album highlights begin to sally forth with the roots rockin' reggae of "Peace Be Unto Thee", an ode to the Most High that captures Dr. Know (guits), Daryll Jenifer (bass), Earl Hudson (traps) and his brother Paul (throat) in a rub-a-dub style, a sonic thrust that eases on into the crunch-up called "Send No Flowers"-- check for those stripped chord progressions that have been appropriated and labeled de riguer by new school punk posers for all intents and purposes but these cats explored that territory before most of 'em were a twinkle in their daddy's eyes...the Brains leave particles of the new guys in their wind; their seminal self titled debut album actually wasn't: it was a cassette...
...the chunks of hardcore continue flying on "Let There Be Angels (Just Like You)", another hard-charging mosh pit number wherein the Brains bring out the chops on a couple of those mid-song breakdown breathers and keep on keeping on (check the ending)...to the uninitiated, the "love Far-I stuff" might come off as a trifle preachy but these guys are as unrepentant as ever about their love of Jah (because it was never a sales gimmick, son) which make a band that will stand for something seem like an O.O.P.A. (what paleontologists call an out of place artifact) from a time when people preferred to eschew the pop-isms and spoke their minds, pay checks be damned (which almost looks as crazy in type as it might sound when hearing it with today's jaded ears)... the dub factor continues with "Roll On", a skanky keyboard bubbler that brings the chalice to straight to the palace and begs for a Horace Swaby dub treatment and then "Univeral Peace" pick up the pace for three more minutes of that stuff heard on "Sailing On" from back in the day-- at points dyed-in-the-wool BB fans will crave one of those ear-busting shrieks but these guys are older and mellowed out, still, they manage to get down to brass tacks and pull out the snap-and-crack which is evidenced on "Build a Nation", the title number, that stomps up in the listener's facial space as it pogo's right into "Expand Your Soul" which follows it and sounds not unlike a slowed down version of "Don't Blow No Bubbles" from 1990's Quickness release (which some consider the last proper Bad Brains release)...and speaking of toasting it up and Horace Swaby (A. Pablo), the cut "Natty Dreadlocks Pon the Mountain Top" actually makes use of an obscure bass line from the maestro's dub songbook while HR drops some DJ-styled lyrics with some of that mid-Atlantic flavor-- so check for the flow...a fitting tribute if ever there was one...
...the outro "Pure Love" will remind the sucker ducks who grew up listening to music influenced by the stuff these guys laid down in seedy recording booths in NYC's alphabet City years ago why, to this day, the Bad Brains crew get the Duke Ellington treatment by people like the Beastie Boys' Adam "MCA" Yauch (who produced this offering himself)... it's readily apparent that they were ahead of the pack when they first dropped the punky-reggae formula over 30 years ago, helping make this LP digestible to fans of the old stuff and perhaps garner some new ones...now that recording techniques have caught up with what they were attempting to do back in the days of DIY, it's clear that their sound was ripe for the digital age...Reggae heads will find their cuts of preferences, as will the hardcore lot and if your preferences are AC/DC as far as those respective genres go, then Build a Nation is definitely in your musical wheelhouse; that LP from the Brains that you've been waiting for all this time...
...not to wax halcyon about the good old days, but it must be said, the Building LP contains a couple of cuts that are skipable on the first listen if you're just getting turned on to these guys...Tunes like "Give Thanks and Praises", another rocker, winds up and throbs along while Human Rights chants it up for the Lion of Judah, "Until Kingdom Comes" appears to be a bookend to their out-take of the "Jah Jah is Rough and Tough" dub from a couple of decades back) and "Jah People Make the World Go Round" might not cotton with the PC set but say what you will, Ras Hailu Gabriel Joseph - I still has those vocal chops and continues walking along Babylon Lane...
...to be certain, if the context is not applied, some might call the group out and deem Build a Nation a "phoner" but therein lies the rub. Were it cut by any other act, the sentiment would be justified but this is Bad Brains. This album, however, chronicles the reunion of a great group doing what made them so. This LP picks up where the band should've continued after Quickness and they wouldn't have missed a step as it truly is a return to their groundbreaking form, it's official: the Bad Brains have tapped into all the fire and brimstone that made them the godfathers of punk-- the big yellow thunderbolt is back and that's a very good thing......here's the opening cut...
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