Search - Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band :: The Serpent's Mouth

Following up on the massive worldwide success of their debut album 55, Bacao Rhythm & Steel band is back with another heavy duty offering. Picking up where they left off and incorporating a ton of new recording techniques they take a huge step forward with The Serpent s Mouth. Named after the eight-mile strait between the island of Trinidad and the coast of Venezuela, The Serpent s Mouth is a journey through both originals and covers, combining classic elements that wide-eared music fans already know, and mashing them up in new and unique ways. Take 1 Thing on it, the group attacks the galloping, chopped Amerie smash hit, with singing pans that follow the R & B vocal. The sound is crisp and up-front, arguably more muscular than the 2005 original. On Great To Be Here, they take on the Jackson 5 B-Boy favorite (which stretches back to the Zulu Nation / Bronx block party days) uncoincidentally, the original version featured a guitar lick that emulated a steel pan run. Here, it gets an even more pulsating groove, adding open-drums breaks throughout, to get DJs salivating. The group veers through more inventively-constructed covers as the album s sequence continues, including Gang Starr s All For The Cash ; Mary J. Blige s I Love You ; and the recently unleashed first single, XXplosive and Burn, paying tribute to both Dr. Dre and Mobb Deep for a bi-coastal funk party. And, as band leader Bjorn Wagner states, My favorite cover on the album is probably Crockett Theme, which is the theme to Miami Vice. I always loved the melody, and the cosmic vibe of the song, and I was honestly surprised that it worked without synthesizers. This time around the group s originals are even stronger, as evidenced by cuts like the flute-fueled break-fest of Hoola Hoop ; the slow and spacey Touchdown ; and the album s title track, the future-epic-adventure-movie-soundtrack cut The Serpent s Mouth. Wagner explains, I wrote the song with Bernhard Hummer as an instrumental fantasy story think of pirates, smugglers and a dangerously beautiful sea passage towards the island. It became an allegory for our mind travels into the world of the steel pan. The Serpent s Mouth is sure to please past fans and newly-minted ones alike. It seems like a new era for Steel Drum music is upon us, and Bacao is firmly leading the way into the hearts of music fans around the world.