Redshift

The city of San Jose from the 1990s has been called The Capital Of The Silicon Valley. The band Redshift from San Jose plays not a silicon drenched music as they fuse blues, funk, psychedelic rock, metal and harmonizing guitars to create a high energy music experience. Their self-titled debut album was released some time ago. The music has definitely some very nice guitar and bass riffing. - PermaFrost

Redshift [debut album] Redshift -
The Psychedelic Shamans of Rhyme. To be honest, I could just leave this review at that as that song title encapsulates the sonic offerings of Bay Area based psychedelic blues outfit Redshift. Each track is a neat journey through space, time and psychedelic madness. Which is amazing as so much talent has come out of the Bay Area over the years and even though gentrification and warehouse fires have threatened the local scene, so many excellent artists still thrive. Lead vocalist Alpha Diallo has a perfectly suited smooth and rounded voice that blends well with harmonies or on it’s own which is something a lot of vocalists struggle with. That he plays guitar on top of that makes it all the more impressive. Their leadership is undoubtedly guitarist Greg Metz, a blues master, who lets loose with some seriously trippy guitar sounds on “Gregorian Preludes” which is reversed and thrown back at you in the later track “Sedulerp Nairogerg” (clever!) a cool 60’s/70’s homage that showcases fully the creativity of the Bay Area guitar phenom. The rhythm section of Randall Holmes and Roy Hargrove provides a great solid backdrop for Greg and Alpha’s guitar duels with Randall joining Alpha and Greg on vocals. Beyond the individual elements, the song writing is fantastic, varied and well crafted. Like a fine wine or scotch, this album will age well. Whether it is the seriously funky vibes of “Gypsy Woman Blues” or the smooth chill of “Pensive” or even the cool transmissions, guitar duels and an excellent refrain of “Intergalactic Beatdown”, Redshift knows their way around a song. However, the real madness (genius?) comes through on “Ozymandias”, an epic mostly instrumental jam that has several distinct movements eschewing the traditional verse/chorus format of most of the album. A killer voiceover from Vincent Price quoting the eponymous poem provides a seriously sinister vibe to this killer jam. With all of this awesome on each track, if there is one thing I can criticize on this album (and thus justify my 7/10 rating) is that the mastering is a little soft and unbalanced. The mix is very balanced for the most part but I do hear some subtle differences between different playback environments that could benefit from a better master. Which just means that this album is seriously very solid if that is my only quibble. Go listen on Bandcamp!
Standout track: “Ozymandias”
Rating: 7/10 - edvardvigen.com