MicShazam

Can't say I found this very interesting to sit through. There's not anything clearly and objectively wrong with this 13 track load of latin funk material, but I feel like there's a distinct absence of personality to these tracks. There's little in the way of memorable melodies or grooves here. Each track tends to consist of a simple, repeated groove and a couple simple horn melodies and I'm getting bored by these tracks pretty quick, even though they're so short. There's just a lack of any really interesting developments or progressions. I'm not too keen on the sound of this record either. The percussion is fine and so are the horns, but the bass sounds rather limp and the keyboards tend to be more garish than evocative.
The nadir of the record comes at track number 7, "Barretta". This track exhibits everything I don't like about this album very, very strongly and I find it downright annoying to listen to.
It's not that I have anything against funk or latin music as such. Sometimes, quite to the contrary. It's just that Brownout somehow manages to make this sound very superficial and garish to my ears and I don't like it at all.

It's not bad music, but I don't really get the 'selling point' of this particular disc either.

4/10. Doesn't move me. Occasionally annoys me. Somewhat repetitive and unimaginative.

Trollheart

I honestly thought, reading the title, that this was some sort of cover album, a homage, if you will, to the greats of the past, and given the opener that idea would seem to be reinforced. What an unfortunate choice for a song title though! "Brown Wind and Fire"? Sounds like the boys have been hanging out too much at the local Mexican restaurant! But basically no, seems it's just the titles that are a little of a paying your dues thing, and mostly I find this like maybe being in the middle of a Mariachi party with Carlos Santana as special guest. Like a few others have said, it's ok but nothing terribly special and I doubt I'd be sitting through it again, or any of their other albums. Pity: I was expecting more.

5/10

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Anteater

Brownout - Homenaje

Good balance of pluses and minuses on this one. I'm definitely diggin' the Santana and mid 70's War influences throughout. 'Brown Wind and Fire' has some stellar orchestration and the production values are nice n' beefy. Perhaps the main issue is that they try to be a little too middle-of-the-road here through most of these pieces. They don't extend out to jam much sans the 5-minute 'You Already Are', which is a side 2 highlight even though it has a muted quality. They aren't hurting for variety within the Latin funk-rock umbrealla, but I would have liked some jammier cuts or a talented vocalist to add some spice. Going back to Santana for a sec....that guy could really pick his vocalists even back on some of his 70's outings.

5.5 out of 10. More oomph would have pushed things to a 7.

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