1/30/2017 – Los Angeles quintet Here Lies Man share the first song from their forthcoming self-titled debut album today via Brooklyn Vegan. The song “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” is available to hear and share HERE.  Yeah, yeah… I’m thinking to myself.  I get a hundred emails like this every day.  But then, the title description had a a key word that stung me like a jab from Muhammad Ali… AFROBEAT.
A longtime listener of the iconic saxophonist Felt Kuti and his band, I felt compelled to check out Here Lies Man’s advance promo track. Â How could we cross the blistering sounds of doom from Ozzy and Tony with the original jamband vibe of Kuti? Â This isn’t going to work…. I was wrong.
Here is my well thought out and poetic review of the first track…
Yes! Â Yes! and more FUCKING YES!
Guitarist Marco Garcia explains…
“These repetitive guitar figures that happen in Afrobeat music are pretty close to heavy rock guitar riffs,” Garcia explains. “It’s based on the clave. It’s the musical algorithm that the rhythms revolve around. That’s what gives it integrity and is part of this musical conversation going on. I knew I wanted it to be psychedelic and heavy, and I wanted to be expanding on a musical tradition than pretending to be creating something new.”
Label:Â RidingEasy Records
Critics of Here Lies Man might be quick to pass them off as, ‘another Black Sabbath rip-off clone‘. Â The first, and most polite, response to that is ‘Go fuck yourself”. Â While, Here Lies Man does owe a lot of their sound and ‘vibe’ to the legendary heavy metal band from England, so does everyone else in the world. Â Original Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has done more to promote music education in the last 50 years than all colleges and universities combined. Â His easy-to-play guitar riffs, yet tactically cool and heavy-as-fuck sound encourages teenagers riddle with angst to pick up the only weapon they have… the six string axe.
