Z Recommends
Everything That One Kid Thinks is Cool-5x7 Top Pick
September 28, 2007

A two-man band that blends New Orleans funk, Memphis soul, and Southern rock using keyboards, a drum set, and the occasional backing instrument, Sugar Free Allstars [ website ] blend a kid-friendly perspective with music genres typically reserved for smoky clubs and the kind of great parties where anyone who won't dance gets the heck out of the living room.

Minor chords, jazzy and punctuated measures, and drums-only breakdowns take down topics such as bathtime, petting zoos, banana pudding, and bad smells with equal aplomb. At times, the music rides a jaunty wave of Hammond organ, animated by a sarcasm that is deeply self-involved but never slows down enough to be self-congratulatory. More frequently, the duo's music digs deep into a truly funky groove with vocals that trip between Lawrence Welk smarminess and a near-metal sneer, and the overall effect makes this for-adults band's first kids-only effort sound as odd and intriguing even while being propelled by an unmistakable momentum.

Keeping the music busier than vocalist Chris Wiser's lyrics seems like a key to success on songs like "Bathtub Boy," but Wiser whips out the arm-length lyric lines in "Poppy and MeeMaw" ("I love my Poppy and MeeMaw / They like cornbread and 'Hee Haw' / When I was little they would put me on the see-saw / So I love my Poppy and MeeMaw"). This is silly done right.

Dos Niños clocks in at under 30 minutes, and our family can't seem to get enough.

Top Tracks: Bathtub Boy / Poppy and MeeMaw / Petting Zoo / Banana Pudding / Stinky

- Jeremiah McNichols
www.zrecs.blogspot.com

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