Categories : Country + Western, Music Reviews.
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Rating: 3/5 Released: February 28, 2006 Reviewer: Trent Depue |
Music from Big Yellow? This could easily have been an appropriate title for this debut album from twin brothers Rich and Rob Kwait (formerly of the Kwait Brothers Band). Electric Cabin: Recorded in a little yellow farmhouse, not far from the little pink house in Woodstock NY that The Band recorded their debut album in, co-produced by The Band/Rick Danko Producer Aaron Hurwitz, and lastly, strikingly similar in genre and style to the iconic rock group.
But it is musical quality that is the real story behind this CD. The album boasts all the elements that made The Band so distinctive, and much of that is due to the production work of Aaron “Prof Louie†Hurwitz, who plays all of the albums Garth Hudson styled organs, synthesizers and accordion. On bass, brother Rob leads a consistently terrific rhythm section that easily switches between complex numbers that drive the tracks their played on and simplistic ones that don’t outshine the songs other elements unnecessarily.
Lyricism and musical quality are undeniably strong on Electric Cabin. Indeed the only thing The Cabin Dogs may be guilty of is perhaps following a little too closely in the footsteps of a band with too distinctive a sound to mimic unnoticed. That being said the album is not without its own sense of identity, if only minimally advertised. Funk infusions on a number of tracks are the most prevalent proof of this, and proof also of the true abilities of this high energy band from Philadelphia.
