Artist.......: Lorez Alexandria
Album........: Early In The Morning + Deep Roots
Label........: Lone Hill Jazz
Genre........: Jazz
Catnr........: LHJ10314
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Feb-20-2011
str.date.....: 000-00-0000
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. early in the morning 02:59
02. don't explain 03:14
03. so long 03:28
04. good morning heartache 03:19
05. trouble is a man 02:44
06. i ain't got nothing but the blues 02:23
07. baby don't you cry 02:16
08. rocks in my bed 02:43
09. i'm just a lucky so and so 03:02
10. almost lost my mind 03:04
11. nature boy 02:50
12. i was a fool 03:24
13. no moon at all 02:12
14. spring will be a little late this year 03:04
15. softly as in a morning sunrise 02:37
16. detour ahead 03:40
17. it could happen to you 02:46
18. trav'lin light 03:28
19. -almost like being in love 02:22
20. -i want to talk about you 02:54
21. -traveling down a lonely road 03:46
22. -love look away 03:50
23. -the end of. a love affair 02:51
24. -baltimore oriole (1963) 03:12
25. -baltimore oriole (1957) 02:56
Runtime 75:04 min
Size 93,7 MB
Release Notes:
Digitally remastered two-fer containing a pair of
long-unavailable albums by cult Jazz singer Lorez
Alexandria one CD plus bonus tracks. Early In The
Morning appears here on CD for the first time ever,
while Deep Roots has only previously appeared on CD
on a long out of print Japanese edition. These
albums find Lorez backed by great stars like Ramsey
Lewis, Frank Foster, Frank Wess, Al Grey, Freddie
Green, Joe Newman, and Howard McGhee.
While Face The Colossus was in no way Dagoba gone
soft, with tracks like "Face The Colossus", "The
Nightfall And All Its Mistakes", and "Sudden Death"
bringing us undoubtedly heavy metal cuts, I did
miss some of that pure crushing force that What
Hell Is About packed, whilst listening to it.
Poseidon on its part fixes that problem, finding a
solid middle ground between the two aforementioned
albums. It takes the more calculated, well
thought-out sound of the former, but also brings
back the grittier bite of the latter. The only
thing one could complain over, here, is the fact
that the band didnÆt put as much emphasis on melody
as they did on Face The Colossus. The industrial
soundscapes are still there, but many a time they
get buried under machinegun riffs and ferocious
double bass. This in itself isnÆt a big problem,
since the overall sound does not directly suffer
from it, but for those who appreciated the more
melodic approach of Face The Colossus, it may be a
slight disappointment.
That is the only possible con to this album,
though, and even that is arguable. Everything else
on Poseidon is well-calculated and superbly
working. The instrumental side is delightfully
heavy most of the time, but is nevertheless varied
enough to keep the listener glued. Just when you
are growing tired of the onslaught of double bass
and heavy palm muted riffs, a relatively catchy
chorus or a cool industrial effect makes its way to
the forefront, delivering some needed contrast to
the heavy general sound and varying things up. Much
of the same can be said about ShawterÆs vocals.
While mainly shouting and screaming his way past
songs, he doesnÆt shy away from the occasional
semi-melodic singing, keeping the vocal department
equally interesting to the instrumental one. ThatÆs
especially good to hear since on Face The Colossus,
ShawterÆs vocals weren't quite as excellent as on
earlier releases. The problem, namely, was in his
clean vocals, which just weren't as good as his
screams, and in a couple of times, didn't flow well
with the overall sound. He has since worked on his
cleans, and on Poseidon they're already much more
enjoyable. It is great to see him back in fine form
on here, even though it is obvious by now that he
will never beat his own performance on What Hell Is
About, which by the way was just flat out immense.
There is one odd (not bad, just odd) thing about
this album, though, that deserves mention - its
outer concept. As far as music goes, Dagoba are
still stylistically doing the same thing they have
for the past three albums, and so it somewhat
baffles me why they have decided to pick an outer
pirate theme here. While their previous records did
have a certain theme running through them too, they
fit the music well. Here, the pirate theme does
not. The band members took promo photos where they
looked like modern day pirates, they titled this
album Poseidon, the cover art is basically just a
ship, the tour following the release of Poseidon is
titled "Death Cruise Tour", but none of this has
anything to do with the music. Even the lyrics are
almost devoid of pirate themes, with only a handful
of exceptions, such as "Dead Lion Reef", where
Shawter screams: "Do you really think that a lion
needs a cage? / IÆm a ***ing pirate, not your
slave". The reason why I brought this up in the
first place is because pirate themes have become
somewhat of a gimmick in metal nowadays (Alestorm,
Swashbuckle, Verbal Deception û all good examples),
not to mention that pirates arenÆt very metal to
begin with. Because of that, I want to assure you
that the music presented is not pirate-themed in
any way, shape or form. No jolly sailorman tunes or
"Yo ho ho"'s here, just four guys playing ballsy
metal and having a good time (and apparently loving
pirate tales, too!).
Poseidon is the perfect embodiment of Dagoba as a
band. It takes only the best from the groupÆs
already great previous records and fuses those
elements together into a well-working metal machine
that features some of the tastiest material the
band has ever put out. It is heavy, it is varied,
it is well thought-out, and clocking in around 40
minutes, it doesnÆt overstay its welcome. Quite
simply, Poseidon is what Dagoba is all about.