Antibalas

Praise Fela, Antibalas has finally made the leap from emulation to innovation. Security takes Afrobeat as its launching pad, but has surprisingly experimental music as its eventual destination, detouring through searing political commentary on the way. The opening track, with its broken beat and crashing symphony of rusty sounds, sounds like a dystopic look at modern life, but it's the small things -- mournful horns here, swooning organ there -- that turn this album into a tour-de-force, considerably more than the sum of its parts.

Antibalas are a small army of Brooklynites who make freewheeling, action-packed music
inspired by the late Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. The twelve-member-plus collective's fourth
album offers jazzy Afro-Latin jams that are intricately assembled and totally rock in spots.
The brass and keyboards organize themselves into riffs and tunes that overlap and soar
toward heaven, underpinned by grooves ranging from invigorating funk ("Beate... More >