Earl Greyhound-Suspicious Package

As a part of Afro-Punk and UrbAlt, I’ve been acquainted with Earl Greyhound. I’ve listened to their music only in passing, but I’ve been given the opportunity to listen to Earl Greyhound’s new album Suspicious Package. For those who aren’t familiar with Earl Greyhound, Earl Greyhound was originally started by songwriters Matt Whyte and Kamara Thomas in the spring of 2002 in New York City. The pair began performing regularly as a duo on piano and guitar on the East and West coast. They crafted their sound that would become the essence of Earl Greyhound. Later on, they expanded the act into a far louder guitar based trio with drummer Ricc Sheridan. Now the line up focused on Matt on lead vocals and guitar and Kamara on Bass and backing vocals. Their sound started to change and was reminiscent of English rock bands such as Queen, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin to even T.Rex. The trio’s live performances showed a versatility of the band being able to pull off melodic touching soul to an explosion of Zeppelin styled Hard Rock.

I’m not going to bore you with more back story. Let’s get to this album!

Suspicious Package is a very progressive rock sounding album that swings like a pendulum from the more advanced sounds of jazz fusion to more balls to the wall rockers. I’m going to focus on the three tracks that I really enjoyed.

The opening track Eyes of Cassandra is a mellow track that starts with some Fender Rhodes noodling then builds into a Latin disco sound. But, the second track, “Eyes of Cassandra pt. 2” builds from the mellow ambience of the opening track…like a thunderstorm off in the distance.

Oye Vaya is a guitar driven rocker that you can either head bang to or isolate the break to dance to. Really, thinking about it, Oye Vaya is kind of reminiscent of “The Mars Volta.”

“Ghost and the Witness” is another great example of Matt Whyte’s guitar playing. It’s a great mix of hook-y riffage and a solo has some actual “soul” to it.

“Suspicious Package” is a good album for someone looking for some more blues and soul driven rock music. I would recommend this album for anyone trying to transfer from neo-soul to something heavier or just anyone that misses that Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin type of Hard Rock.

The only criticism that I have with “Suspicious Package” is that the rawness of the band doesn’t match with the hi-fi recording techniques. Personally, more lo-fi recording techniques would’ve complimented the album.

“Suspicious Package”is available now at http://www.earlgreyhound.com/looklisten/ .