Dust and Dirt

Kiwi reggae has long forged a name for itself domestically, but it’s only in the last decade or so that the genre has started to break through internationally. Taking Jamaica’s most famous export and applying their own laidback island aesthetic, New Zealand reggae is now being cleverly meshed with pop, jazz and even rock to form a distinctive sound. Fat Freddy’s Drop are probably the most renowned of the New Zealand groups but others have made a mark, including Kaikoura’s Salmonella Dub, Black Pitch – who hail from Christchurch, and Wellington’s The Black Seeds – who are back for their seventh album, Dust and Dirt.

Following on from 2008’s Solid Ground, which reached #15 in the US reggae charts, the band’s latest disc – self-recorded, self-produced and released on their own record label – is solid stuff, without deviating too much from their tried and tested formula of gentle riffs, keyboard, brass backing and floaty vocals from Barnaby Weir, with occasionally funky flourishes. One of the album’s standout tracks is ‘Loose Cartilage, a deviation from The Black Seeds’ bread-and-butter sound, which starts with indie guitar and then turns into a grooving Afro-beat number. Indeed the lack of vocals works pretty well – Weir doesn’t have the world’s strongest voice and sometimes you feel as though he doesn’t make his presence felt enough on tracks.

Dust and Dirt is a steady, safe album nonetheless and the Seeds clearly know what it is that their faithful fans like (smoky reggae on the title-track or retro-tinged funk on ‘Don’t Turn Around’). But with a stronger vocalist, perhaps, this band could really go places.