Jamaica (Loosegroove, 1998)

Hi Fi Killers is a duo from Seattle who, until this album have specialized in funk/hip-hop/dance music, but on the aptly titled Jamaica, they delve into reggae, dub, and dancehall with mixed results.  Given their background, it's not surprising that hip-hop and funk influences flow through these tracks, providing a crisp and fairly unique and cohesive sound.  A nice showcase of this cornucopia of influences is "Rug Burn Dub," which combines a funk bass and guitar rhythm with jazzy cymbals, roots keyboards, and even some African drums.  The best cut here, though, is "Evil Dub," a mid-tempo groove mixing imperial rootsy horns and a dancehall drum and bass rhythm.  "Tell Dem" similarly mixes dancehall and roots to nice effect, while "I & I Time" is a nice blend of hip-hop and reggae, but little else on Jamaica really shines.  For all the ingenuity of their mixing of musical styles, Hi Fi Killers don't show much imagination in many of their beats.   They resort to the overused "Bam Bam" (or "Stalag 17") rhythm twice, for goodness sake.  "Wrong Move Man" and "Can't Stop Us" are fairly generic hip-hop reggae tunes, while "Indio Dub" is a dull, repetitive funk/dub/hip-hop cut with roots keyboards thrown in seemingly to make it fit into the genre.  It's obvious that Hi Fi Killers don't specialize in reggae, and Jamaica goes to show that just being a fan of the genre doesn't guarantee that you will produce good examples of it.