Dub Trio

New Heavy

[2/5] Dub Trio’s second album is occasionally quite good, but ultimately, in their attempt to bridge genres with New Heavy, the band members work with too limited a palette, just as their closest audio predecessors, the dub-meets-metal trio Blind Idiot God, did two decades prior. New Heavy’s songs equally comprise gently rolling bass lines and loud, metallic guitar riffs. “Jack Bauer,” titled in homage to everyone’s favorite suspect-torturin’, spree-killin’ TV action hero, sounds like the Police in its “dub” section and like latter-day Hüsker Dü when guitarist D.P. Holmes cranks up his amp. “One Man Tag Crew” is a headlong surf-core sprint that’s almost Black Flag-esque until, again, it breaks down into a slowly skanking middle section. The kick drum on the harsh opening section of “Cool Out And Coexist” is almost hardcore, but when the echoes start, things get disorienting. Mike Patton contributes vocals to “Not Alone,” which, incidentally, is also the disc’s only track with an actual coherent melody, as opposed to just a riff.
(ROIR) Phil Freeman