Movement

AMG Review of Movement

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

This Kingston, Jamaica-based group already had a growing U.S. following before appearing at SXSW and then releasing its debut album Stateside in early 2008. Movement is a promising beginning from seriously talented band; it boasts a strong, dry sound that recalls the early Mango albums of Steel Pulse, and if some of the songs would benefit from more carefully constructed melodic hooks, well, the same thing was true of those Steel Pulse albums, and things worked out quite well for them. This album's one pervasive weakness is a lack of structural discipline; too many of these songs are about one minute too long, and the program itself feels a bit overstuffed. (It's a good 70-minute long album that would have been an excellent 45-minute one.) At the low end of the achievement scale are the overly wordy and insufficiently tuneful "20 Centuries" and the somewhat tedious "Rain," but there is plenty of music at the other end of spectrum as well, notably the nicely swinging "Special Place" and the very pretty "Riverstone," which features a sharp and precise horn chart. The album ends with a bang, with a sturdy rockers number titled "How Much Longer" and a rock-hard remix of "In the Jungle"." Very nice overall.