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Don Caballero

World Class Listening Problem

Written by: PP on 15/05/2006 18:44:31

The now-legendary Don Caballero is the reason we've seen so many instrumental bands spawn in the recent years. Pelican and Dysrhythmia among others have drawn influences from Don Caballero's progressive instrumentalism, and after "World Class Listening Problem", their first album in more than five years, we're likely to see the same trend continuing.

I never really understood where instrumental bands find their song titles from, and especially not where Don Caballero gets the ideas for titles like "And And And, He Lowered The Twin Down" or the snappy "Sure We Had Knives Around". Perhaps they are trying to musically demonstrate the story around those titles, perhaps they're just ideas found upon while heavily intoxicated, who knows. The band takes use of repetitive passages and constantly varying time signatures to create a leisurely paced, progressive sum of sonic advancement full of percussion and telepathic jamming between the band members. Where Dysrhythmia relies on strong, distinctive bass-lines, Don Cabarello's strength lies on creating original and interesting guitar combos, where you'll find both guitars going opposite directions or just building on top of each other from time to time. But still, like I noted in the Dysrhythmia review, I can't hide that I'm bothered by the absence of vocal work, although it would be immensely difficult to find a suitable vocal style for Don Caballero's jazz-oriented progressive jamming.

But as I have mentioned in the previous reviews of instrumental bands, they were never really my favorite slice of the pie. Sure, it's artistic and different from 99.9% of the music out there, but it just isn't by any means mind blowing or captivating in my opinion. Listen to it yourself and decide.

Download: I Agree...No!...I Disagree
For the fans of: Pelican, Dysrhythmia, Sonic Youth
Listen: Myspace

Release date 22.05.2006
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Provided by Target ApS