The Budos Band Take Seven Steps to Heaven

The Budos Band began as an instrumental jam band, and their seventh album—arriving five years after their last full-length, Long in the Tooth (playfully referred to as the group’s entry into middle age)—stays true to those roots. The Budos may not engage in winding guitar expeditions (sorry, Phisheads), but the way they raid dozens of genres and styles (2014’s Burnt Offering envisioned a Fela Kuti-obsessed Deep Purple) while prioritizing grooves partakes of the freewheeling jam tradition. VII (out May 30), written and recorded on the fly, has the comfortable swagger of a record made by a band with deep confidence in their skills, experience, and intuition. They’ve got everything they need, and they don’t need a plan.

The basic Budos formula remains the same—snaky tendrils of guitar, smoky ribbons of electric organ, and hard-hitting rhythms punctuated by brass, often with sax, trombone, and trumpets playing in unison. Solos are infrequent, but invariably surprising, such as the thrumming baritone sax workout in “Kudzu Vine,” or the aching trumpet on “The Strigoi.” The prominence of the organ and synths on tracks like “Lair of 1,000 Serpents” and opener “Thrice Crowned” recalls the swarthy musk of “Burnt Offering,” but the drums and auxiliary percussion are now far more supple and swinging. If the Budos Band were trying something out back in 2014, now they have it down to a sweet, sweet science. It’s a heavy, hearty, and aromatic mix that could be—as this kind of party-centric music often is—described in stew terms: maybe a zesty jambalaya, or a spicy mulligatawny. Something hot, filling, and vaguely exotic, at any rate.

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Produced by guitarist Tom Brenneck, VII marks the band’s full-length debut on Diamond West Records, a label co-founded by Budos saxophonist Jared Tankel and Brenneck after leaving their home base of Daptone Records, whose neo-soul sound defined the band’s early years. Diamond West has focused on more eclectic material, and VII reflects that wider palette, with Moorish-tinted trumpet lines and Mediterranean modes. The one-two punch of “Sharky’s Delight” and “Curse of the Ivory Fang” in the middle of the album shows off the band’s dependability and range. The former is an organ-and-keys-driven slow burn that includes what sounds like an electrified harp being plucked over a bass line that’s deep as well. It has hints of Indian-influenced psych, without so much as a single sitar, but it also contains trace elements of dub and even the Doors. “Curse of the Ivory Fang,” meanwhile, is 100% uncut American funk, with punchy horns, burly bass, and strutting percussion. Both tracks possess a cinematic quality that’s slightly retro without being kitschy, and both sound like the soundtrack to entirely different stages of a rager. VII may not chart a new course for the veteran band, but it finds ways to keep them going, incorporating new ideas, refining old ones, and, most importantly, keeping the stew cooking and the party fed.

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