MEDIA REVIEWS
ALBUM
The cult
Choice of Weapon
Cooking Vinyl Records
The early ’80s frequently get a bad rap—most times
for good reason. During the window of time following
punk and preceding grunge, synth-heavy new wave
music reigned king. Thankfully, the era didn’t keep
quality and soulful hard rock start-ups from making an entry, and some seriously influential and important music did come from the days of excessive mousse and neon. Sitting at
or near the very top of that list is The Cult, not only one of the most powerful, straight-ahead, intense rock bands to emanate from the time, but a band that has endured and
evolved for decades with their totally unique brand of hypnotic, riff-based rock.
ALBUM
carolina
chocolate
drops
Leaving Eden
Nonesuch
Foot-tapping ensues right out of the barn
on the Carolina Chocolate Drops sopho-
more effort, as the thunder-picking melody
of a 5-string banjo collides with a fiddle
moan going rounds with a primitive yet
wildly syncopated fife-and-drum beat in
“Riro’s House.” It doesn’t take long to real-
ize there’s something important about that
galloping banjo (several models appear
on the album: 5-string, 4-string, 5-string
cello banjo, and a 5-string “gourd”), an
instrument with roots in African-American
traditional music, and more specifically,
Africans in Colonial America. It’s been said
the Carolina Chocolate Drops are among
the only—if not the only—black traditional
string band this side of, well, anywhere. It’s
fair to say founding members Rhiannon
Giddens and Dom Flemons have knocked
hard on the doors of their past. For Leaving
Eden, the follow-up to 2010’s Grammy win-
ning Genuine Negro Jig, the group enlisted
Nashville producer Buddy Miller (Emmylou
Harris, Solomon Burke, Robert Plant),
beat-boxer Adam Matta, Brooklyn guitarist/
banjoist Hubby Jenkins, and cellist Leyla
McCalla to expand upon these firm roots.
