Antibalas Fu Chronicles review Lai Lai
Music

REVIEW: Antibalas, Fu Chronicles

by Darcy MacDonald

While Antibalas has long since found its voice, Fu Chronicles gives it sharper impact.

Antibalas, Fu Chronicles (Daptone)

You can gentrify Williamsburg, NY — Antibalas’s place of origin — but you can’t take the Afro out of the beat these players (now 20-plus years deep into their mission) put down. On a seventh studio voyage through African and Latin landscapes of funk, jazz and dance-oriented rhythm, the power still belongs to the people. Fans know what to expect, to be sure, but we find the band a little more focused here, and while their compositions always have and always will take time to breathe and stretch, it’s noteworthy that lead vocalist Duke Amayo spends a little less time getting warmed up from track to track, making for a more cohesive, harmonic blend of instrumentation and lyrics that lends structure to each song and thereby the album as a whole. While Antibalas has long since found its voice, Fu Chronicles gives it sharper impact. 8/10 Trial Track: “Lai Lai”

“Lai Lai” from Fu Chronicles by Antibalas

Antibalas website

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Cult MTL is a daily web and monthly print publication focusing on Montreal music, arts, culture and city life. Along with interviewing local and visiting artists, promoters and entrepreneurs, we feature analysis and criticism by our editorial staff and crew of columnists and freelancers, compile comprehensive event listings, curate a daily To-Do List and run the annual Best of MTL readers poll.

Posted in Music

by Darcy MacDonald

Contributor
Darcy MacDonald has been with Cult MTL since day one, a decade ago. Which means today, he’s a middle-aged white guy (albeit one more interested in other people’s ideas than in his own). He was previously a columnist and reporter for Montreal Mirror, and has also created content (FKA “written”) for RBMA, Noisey, Montreal Gazette, The National Post and probably some other great places he’s forgotten about. Music, culture, community and miscellaneous questions in search of answers all come across his desk, sooner or later.