Year of the Crow (Bonus Track Version)

Album Review

State Radio's sophomore effort shines its brightest when it leaves the jam band world behind, choosing instead to focus on raucous, semi-punky rhythms and left-wing social commentary. With song titles like "Guantanamo," "CIA," and "Fall of the American Empire," the bandmates make no attempt to hide their political agenda as they point a collective finger at the "torture advocates" and "crooked white chiefs" who run the country. The lyrics are often poignant, especially when they're combined with the buzzing basslines and high-pitched, harmonized vocals that make "Guantanamo" such an effective leadoff track. "Rash of Robberies" follows a similar trajectory, mixing full-throttled rock-outs and urgent wordplay with slow, quieter passages. Chad Urmston pushes his voice to its upper limit, his lyrics clumping together in one sweaty mass as the band pulses beneath him. Here, Urmston's messages of revolution and awareness are backed with equal enthusiasm from the group, and Year of the Crow glows as a result. But elsewhere, State Radio abandons that formula in order to focus on the band's jam-happy past, which results in a number of white-boy reggae tunes and misguided attempts at funk. As was the case with Us Against the Crown, the band seems tempted to take up permanent residence in this cloudy hodgepodge of jam genres — and, indeed, they stay mired in such material for a good portion of the disc, playing easygoing tunes that are guaranteed to make their stoned fans dance. The insightful lyrics remain, but they're often cheapened by the light instrumentation and easy-to-remember mantras like "I will fight no more, forever" (which Urmston delivers in his best Jamaica-by-way-of-Vermont accent). That particular tune, "Fight No More," does have a nice ending, replete with a string section and some pretty harmonies. Even so, the band's message gets lost during the aforementioned jam-heavy moments, due in large part to the number of Northeastern "reggae" bands that have attempted something similar — that is, writing a song about revolution, backed with island rhythms and upbeat guitar stabs — without knowing a darn thing about the topic at hand. State Radio is, after all, a Caucasian group from the jam band haven of Vermont, and while they do have a message to convey, they'd do better to set themselves apart by focusing on songs that are as volatile and urgent as the words Urmston writes.