COBY BROWN GROUP
Homesick (Coby Brown/All Indie)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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Homesick offers eight tracks from the Coby Brown Group, a NYC based quartet that has a groove that could be described as "jazzy," but isn't jazz, exactly. There's a little too much soul to call it simply pop, and a dose of Americana style country that keeps the sound out of the soul box. In other words, Coby Brown Group is another one of those indie outfits that seem to exist just to confound the efforts of music scribes like me to provide a simple peg to hang them on and get on to the next CD in the stack.

This, of course, means that I had to listen to the album close enough to hear what they're up to, and that turned out to be quite a pleasurable task. The structure of the songs seem to leave plenty of capacity for extended improv, although the performances on disc only hint at that capacity. If they take more advantage on stage, they're likely to get tagged as a jazz oriented jam band. That's certainly a broad and meaningless enough category to connect to an audience without confining the music.

The players, Brown on guitar and vocals, Justin Varnes on drums and brothers Anthony and Oscar Perez on bass and keyboards respectively, have solid chops and have clearly spent enough time woodshedding together to have a tighter sound than you'll hear on the typical debut. Brown seems to write with the particular talents of his bandmates in mind, and his vocal contributions reveal a particular knack for the blue-eyed soul ballad style.

They've stuck pretty close to their base in the Northeast so far, with a foray into Floriday, but this disc should extend their reach. If you enjoy strong grooves, soulful singing and tight ensemble work, you should reach out and find this one soon. [ www.cobybrowngroup.com]

Track List:

The Distance * Please * I'm Not Leaving * Dangerous * My Baby * Quick Fix * Goodnight * King Of Halloween

© 2001 - Shaun Dale