With the recent vacation declared by Phish (note to the
\nAssociated Press: this was a planned break; the band has not broken
\nup as of this writing), it’s inevitable that their legion of fans
\nare going to be trolling for other similar groups to satisfy their
\ngroove-rock fix. This is where bands like Minneapolis’s The Big Wu
\nwill gladly fill the bill – though their most recent release (and
\nsecond overall)
\nFolktales<\/i> shows this group still is in their growing
\nphase.<\/p>\n
The Big Wu can only be described as a poor man’s Phish. They
\nhave the trip-rock sound down pretty well, but the guitar lines of
\nChris Castino and Jason Fladager don’t have nearly the fluidness of
\na Trey Anastasio solo. Lyrically, The Big Wu doesn’t go as far out
\non the spacey limb, but occasionally, that works to their
\ndisadvantage, as the music almost calls for an ethereal flow with
\neverything.<\/p>\n
Things start off in a promising manner with “Angie O’Plasty,”
\nwhich shows off the harmony vocals of Castino, Fladager and drummer
\nTerry VanDeWalker. Sometimes, they almost seem too soft in the
\ncourse of
\nFolktales<\/i>, but everything works itself into a happy medium
\non this particular number. A few other numbers, like “Elani” and
\n“House Of Wu” (which reminded me a lot of “Llama”) dare to suggest
\nthat The Big Wu could well have a strong claim to the throne.<\/p>\n
The problem with
\nFolktales<\/i> is that these moments of piquing interest on the
\npart of the listener are too few and far between. Tracks like
\n“Oxygen” should be the ones that absolutely suck the listener into
\nthe world of Wu. Regrettably, this just doesn’t happen. Maybe it’s
\nbecause the band is still very much learning about itself and its
\nsurroundings. Maybe it’s because, as they claim, their songs are
\nalways being rewritten with each performance, and neither band nor
\naudience can ever fully get to a level of comfort.<\/p>\n
There was one touch on
\nFolktales<\/i> which showed the band has a lot of class. At the
\nfadeout of the closing track “Shantytown” (the group’s foray into
\nreggae), you can hear an audience at one of the band’s shows
\nsinging along to the chorus. Each member of that crowd is
\npersonally thanked in the liner notes. Nice move… and something
\nthat’s gonna be hard to do if they start playing the big sheds.<\/p>\n
There is promise in the music of The Big Wu, yet
\nFolktales<\/i> seems to suggest that is has been left unfulfilled
\nthis time around. Maybe, like their genre-mates, it takes a few
\nalbums before everything really clicks for them. Phish got it on
\nthe third try (
\nA Picture Of Nectar<\/i>). Maybe The Big Wu will prove the third
\ntime’s the charm for them as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6446],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-36813","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-big-wu","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36813"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36813"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}