Published on Nov 22, 1998
Pretenders to the recently vacated Red Hot Chili Pepper “kings
of honkey funk” throne? No one seems to like this Omaha, Nebraska
quintet very much, so I thought I’d give one of their earlier
releases a spin. I now have a dirty secret: I really liked it. Sure
I could rag on
Grassroots‘ obvious influences, and the incessant white-boy
rap, but since I found this album to be more than infectious, I
will refrain from toeing the collective critical line.
Despite a few schizophrenic tracks, this album is actually quite
unified. One thing I immediately noticed sets this band apart from
a lot of their melting pot music contemporaries: these guys respect
the chorus. I like a good hook and 311 definitely have a rigid pop
sensibility. And, barring the rap, these guys can actually sing (if
anemically), and guitarist Tim Mahoney knows how to play, except
for one factor that drove me nuts – during the guitar solos Mahoney
has a seeming disdain for vibrato. It took me a while to figure out
what was bothering me about his parts, and it turns out the
straight ahead playing was the culprit.
The album starts on a heavy, octave divided guitar riff. A big
fan of that basement thumping sound, I was interested from the
outset. The song itself, “Homebrew”, is a rocker, with a really
nice chorus that resonates with bassist P-Nut’s cool playing and
vocalist Nick Hexum’s nasally jive. “Nutsymptom”, the next track,
takes off with a hip hop intro and some tolerable rapping by the,
er…rapper, a guy called SA Martinez. What’s of interest is the
almost ragtime style of the chorus, which offers great contrast to
the inherent hipness of the verses.
Another fascinating aspect of
Grassroots is the producer, the veteran Eddie Offord (who
produced and engineered seminal albums such as
The Yes Album,
Imagine, and
Emerson, Lake and Palmer). Further research showed the guys
in 311 fostered serious creative differences with Offord, and
eventually it came down to a mutiny in the studio. Personally I
found
Grassroots has a clear and up front soundstage. To avoid any
audio quality problems, like the murkiness I found while reviewing
Rush’s
Signals, I transported
Grassroots to my friend Patrick’s house. Listening to the
album through a couple Klipsch Chorus IIs and matching 15″
subwoofer I found no fault with the production value.
A trio of smoother tracks balances the album’s heaviness. “8:16
A.M.” opens with a nifty vibraphone-type riff, which reminds me
more of Zappa than anything else. It’s a romantic backdrop and
Hexum succeeds while riffing some nonsensical lyrics over the
swelling guitar chords. Again the chorus is well crafted and
appealing. “Lose” is a nice tribute to the foreknowledge of a
breakup, and the track shows a lot of 311’s pop awareness. The last
song on the album, “1, 2, 3”, features warm dub delays and some
dancehall style rap by Martinez. I would like to see more of this
style from the group, as I feel their chops and awareness of song
form really shine through when they lay back.
There are some other rockers on the album, the most notable
being “Applied Science”. I really like Chad Sexton’s interesting
drum break/solo in the middle section. Also, the group throws in a
wicked bridge towards the end that really defines 311’s (forgive
me) “stylee”. The Jamaican dub edge was a really smart route for
these guys, I feel the sound sets them apart from other acts that
are in the same so-called “rap-metal” genre, although I hesitate to
label 311 as metal due to their obviously diverse influences. A
distorted guitar does not metal make.
While the other tunes on the album are certainly worth checking
out, I feel 311 was really trying to establish their identity on
Grassroots, thus I stuck with the tracks that stood out to
me. I like the adventurous spirit of the disc, and have listened to
it many times since, but there are two filler songs and a lot of
unnecessary rapping that could have been replaced by more appealing
melodies. So, I give the guys from Omaha a B- for
Grassroots, and will likely be checking out the rest of
their catalogue.