WHITE RABBIT DYNAMITE (Insight) CD
Berlin's WHITE RABBIT DYNAMITE are attracted to the heavy blues-tinged rock of the late 60's/70's and they revive this genre with a lot of verve and talent. A proof of this is their self-financed debut album 'Insight', released in 2010. It consists of ten varied tracks which offer a cool combination of blues, psychedelic, progressive and heavy rock elements, featuring long, instrumental workouts. The musicianship is strong and there is nothing flashy or exciting about any of the singular members, but the great contribution they make is as a unit, not as individuals. Every musician in the group seems to know what and when to play in order to add fullness or harmonic balance to a song, and it shows.
It is immediately noticeable that they place great value on sounding as authentic as possible. They managed to reproduce a warm full-bodied vintage sound that allows enough room for each instrument to flourish. Only very seldom they allow themselves a trip into the present (if at all, mostly into Samsara Blues Experiment or Colour Haze territories), as exemplified by 'It Wouldn't Take Me That Long To...' which is also the longest track, clocking in at over 14 minutes. By doing it, they manage to combine past and present in a very skillful way without losing their backward-looking approach. The female vocals fit into the songs very well, and her deep, dark timbre supplies the music's overall atmosphere. But 'Insight' is by no means a gloomy album. Each song creates its own atmosphere, with an amazing almost dreamlike quality throughout that can quite literally transport the listener across various soundscapes from the light of a summer's day to the darkness of a winter night and everywhere in between.
Much of this music is blues based, but WHITE RABBIT DYNAMITE has a nice way of lending a 1970's heavy progressive elegance to their heavy tunes. There you will also find the versatility of jazz, which guarantees a constant flow of sound which you can sink into. But 'Insight' is predominantly based on heavy riffs, and there are plenty of it. Thus I believe that this one should please both fans of early 1970's heavy rock as well as connoisseurs of hard progressive rock which is based on loud guitars. Summing up it's a strong debut album, and I am sure that we will hear much more of WHITE RABBIT DYNAMITE in the future. At least, that is what I wish.
(KK)