Search - Salmonella Dub :: One Drop East

There's good news and bad news...

10/28/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"First, the good news. This album is a brilliant piece of work: slightly more reggae-influenced than Salmonella Dub's previous Dubplates album, with the electronics sounding particularly polished. Standout tracks are "Slide", an epic bass-heavy dub workout, and "Nu Steppa", a frantic breakbeat tornado of a song. All in all, a worthy successor to Dubplates and a great addition to your dub library.
Now the bad news, and the reason this album gets 3 stars instead of 4. One Drop East is "infected" (there's no better term for it) with EMI's insidious copy protection. How much influence the band had in this I don't know; there's a lengthy disclaimer inside the CD slick lambasting digital downloaders, so it's evident SD aren't going to champion the digital music revolution anytime soon. What this means, however, is that the dough-hungry suits at EMI hamstring you in terms of how you want to use the "product" you buy. If the little copy control symbol hidden on the spine of the album had been made even slightly visible to the naked eye I wouldn't have bought it on principle. If I buy a CD, I don't want some breadhead music exec who cares nothing for art and everything for his six-figure salary dictating to me where and when I can play that which is rightfully mine. When I visited SD's website I let them know on their messageboard how disappointed I was that they'd gone down the copy control route; my message was followed by many similar complaints. A week or so later they'd "cleansed" the messageboard of dissidents. Sad, sad stuff. I really love the Dub's music; live, they are superb. But by embracing copy control - which is only going to see more people download their music instead of buying their CD - they have disappointed a fan big time."

It sounds like summer to me

Paul Gargan | London | 04/26/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Out of Eden" picks up where Salmonella Dub's outstanding 2001 offering "Inside the Dub Plates" left off. We have more of the distinctive blend of groovy roots reggae and low rolling drum n bass, more of the trademark horns, more of the driving bass lines and more of that summer time good feeling. All of which is good news for me because I loved "Inside the Dub Plates". There is perhaps slightly more of the reggae rhythms and slightly less of the dub workout this time around but there is certainly plenty of music to groove to here and plenty of music to chill out with. The only critique that could be levelled is that this album doesn't represent anything new from Salmonella Dub and to my mind is a bit of a sideways step. But hey, what do I care. This album will be in high rotation at my place over the summer. Could someone pass me a beer and turn up the music please."