None of the songs on Enchanted Ape’s debut album, “Three Ring Symphony,” are under five minutes. Most of the tracks were recorded live and on location in Somerset and Three Lakes, Wisconsin. There is lots of djembe and klong saw on the album. You know what this all means, right? Jam band: Two of the scariest words in the English language, next to “ritual disembowelment,” or “bridal price.” And this isn’t just personal bias coming out here. Like death, taxes and post-show pamphlets, atrocious jam bands are one sad constant in this shifting world.
When a press kit describes songs by using the phrase “set free to develop organically,” that’s a nice euphemism for “songs that will go on seemingly forever with excessive noodling.” About halfway through “Better Times,” when lead singer Chris O’Brian says “Bring the funk,” and lead guitarist Alec James Knutson breaks in with some Clapton-aping soloing, then Kevin Sinclair comes in with a saxophone solo, and then Knutson comes back in with his electric guitar, it’s hard to believe it’s all without irony. But it is. All the members of Enchanted Ape were raised on your father and art teacher’s classic rock jam bands: Grateful Dead, Phish, Allman Brothers and ad nauseaum. Like their name implicitly references, this is overblown homage.
O’Brian and company aren’t just steeped in the musical influences of their forbearers, but are lyrically influenced as well. The voice of Dave Matthews makes several appearances. O’Brian, in his white-bread warble, sings of southbound trains, voodoo lights, not letting the bastards get him down and getting wasted on tequila with hot chicks. One of the biggest offences is “Fungi Lullaby,” the kind of song you’d expect to hear at the Burning Man Festival. Complete with a trippy, didgeridoo blanketed mid-song breakdown, backup vocalist Debra G. croons indecipherably like a naked, twirling hippie. “We will close our eyes and finally see/feel the earth move underneath our bare feet,” O’Brian sings at the close. This is music to eat mushrooms to.
www.enchantedape.com
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