Antibalas

For close to a decade, every single time I had a chance to see The Atibalas live, I would be thwarted by life. In a moment of desperation, I found out they were opening for Lettuce in Denver. It didn't take a lot to convince my wife and our good friends to travel from Austin for the show. In addition to an amazing show from the Antibala, Lettuce was incredible and I was introduced to a band I would soon be playing as part of any road trip mix, Andy Frasco. It was however, The Antibalas who pushed me even deeper down the afrobeat rabbit hole than I already was.

"Antibalas doesn't need words. They never really did."

The Antibalas story begins in a Brooklyn warehouse in 1997, when founder and co-producer Martín Perna assembled what would grow into a 12-piece Afrobeat collective credited with bringing the fire of Fela Kuti to a whole new generation. Hourglass is their seventh studio album and it marks a homecoming of sorts — the band strips away the vocals they've used in recent years and returns to pure instrumental Afrobeat, letting rhythm and melody carry everything they want to say about this world. As Perna puts it, once a song has lyrics, everyone who doesn't speak that language is on the outside. With Hourglass, nobody is on the outside.

The decision to go instrumental feels absolutely right. With previous frontman Duke Amayo gone after 23 remarkable years, Perna and company don't try to replace him — they lean hard into what this band does at its most primal. Six tracks, no filler, no wasted motion.

Solace opens things with that classic Antibalas move — a slow build of percussion and a warm synth line before the horns come flooding in like a dam breaking. You know immediately you're in good hands. Lo Life swings like something that fell off a 1970s Ghanaian dance floor, the whole band locked into a groove so deep you need a rope to climb back out.

La Ceiba is the one that grabs you by the collar. A raw guitar growl cuts right through the brass and dares you to sit still. It's the most urgent track on the record and it earns every second. The title track, Hourglass, begins with a tenor saxophone solo that is by turns mournful and absolutely soaring before the whole band drops into a 12-8 groove as heavy as anything you'll hear this year. Oasis closes things out with a triumphant flood of flute work that sends you back into the world slightly changed.

Daptone continues to set the gold standard for both recording quality and packaging — the gatefold vinyl is a work of art unto itself, that collaged eye staring back at you from the cover asking what exactly you see when you look at the world around you. The band's political conscience hasn't gone anywhere, it's just moved entirely into the music where, honestly, it's even more powerful.

Hourglass is a testament to what happens when musicians of this caliber stop trying to explain themselves and simply play. Antibalas doesn't need words. They never really did.