Late for the Future

Marketed as an acid jazz band, New Orleans based Galactic has little to offer to jazz fans, but is popular with younger audiences who like to dance. They have an infectious groove well suited for the arm waver crowd, and occasionally live up to their name with spacey sounds, but fall way short of Sun Ra, and on an R&B level, Tower of Power or Stuff. Still they're good at what they do, Theryl de'Clouet is a fine soul singer, Stanton Moore a rock-solid drummer, and saxophonist/harmonicist Ben Ellman can play deep bluesy or avant garde themes on command.

The band splits time between instrumental funk or R&B pop. Most creative on "Hit The Wall," they play Balkan flavored funk with Ellman on baritone sax and Roger Lewis (Dirty Dozen) on soprano. Organ fired funk rock informs "Black Eyed Pea" with Ellman going outre, while overdubbed sax and harmonic trade off before contrasting industrial clattering during "Doublewide." Of the vocal tunes "Action Speaks Louder Than Words" is an excellent message and a real potential hit, "Thrill" a pleading love song, "Century City" a ponderous dinosaur rocker laden with electric guitar of Jeff Raines, "Running Man" a basic soul pop tune, and "Baker's Dozen" is a second line funk reminiscent of "Hollywood Swingers."

Fans of Maceo Parker, Medeski, Martin & Wood, or Groove Collective should gravitate toward Galactic, but they have a way to go before establishing themselves as any kind of innovators or trend setters. ~ Michael G. Nastos, Rovi