ON THE WAY TO ROOTS LAND

An album from Sébastien Gramond's 'Roots Land' project (a series that I can't really find any binding themes in), we are given yet another haphazard collage of different songs, jams and sound experiments from this prolific artist. Although Gramond is incredibly talented, he does tend to put out alot of albums that may have been better off unreleased- or at least, developed upon- and 'On The Way To Roots Land' falls into this unfortunate category. Although it showcases Gramond's ability as a multi-instrumentalist, that's the extent of the music here, and there is little else to really be worth coming here for. On its own, this stands as being a fairly mediocre jam album, but especially considering that Gramond has a great many albums that are much more successful than this, 'On The Way To Roots Land' feels a bit invalid.

'On The Way To Roots Land' is generally split into three sections. The first of these is the blues portion, which features some decent guitar riffs, but marred by some rather weak and screechy vocals. Jazz makes up the second third of this album, and due to the fact that Gramond is certainly most familiar with this style than just about any other, it turns out to be the best. Lastly is a sampling of Gramond's psychedelic ventures, which have some potential through their use of some interesting effects, but also tend to lose their power through the screeching vocals. Since Gramond has shown himself to be a fairly decent singer on other albums, it seems rather counter-intuitive that he would take his talents and flush them down the toilet in favour for something that- quite simply- does not sound very nice.

The songwriting here is generally what I've come to expect of Gramond's less involved, less developed projects; highly improvised, some recurring musical ideas here and there, and a lacking sense of dynamic. Once again, Gramond has proven that he is capable of all of these things, so it makes that much less sense that he would settle for anything less than his best. With that in mind, 'On The Way To Roots Land' has been a disappointing venture.