| CD REVIEW HR (= Human Rights) |
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Band : HR (= Human Rights) As some of you may know, Paul Hudson aka “HR” is the frontman of the legendary Bad Brains (with whom he’s inspired countless acts over the years), active since 1978. With two members of that band not interested in the Reggae and Dub aspirations of both HR and his drumming brother Earl Hudson (in fact, the BB members had continuous disagreements about the issue over the years), the latter two started HR’s solo career in 1983 with the formation of Human Rights (aka HR Band). With HR’s continuous splitting and getting back together with Bad Brains, Human Rights was still able to release the occasional album now and then. Besides the self-titled 1987 debut and its 1989 follow-up Singin’ In The Heart, you’ve got 1990’s HR Tapes 84-86 (subtitled It’s Out Of Luv/ Keep Out Of Reach,and as the title suggests it’s a compilation of early demoes by the band) and Charge, plus 1992’s I Luv and Our Faith albums (the latter – the only one nót on SST but Railroad – released also on CD in 1993). After that, my info on HR (Human Rights) releases is reduced to nothingness. From 1990 to 1995 HR and Bad Brains had split up, but returned in their original line-up with that year’s God Of Love. Later that year the band split again, but in ’97 the members reunited to remaster some very early studio recordings (released as The Omega Sessions EP by Victory). In 1999 Bad Brains started touring (for the next two years) as Soul Brains, and in 2000 a Bad Brains reunion live album was issued. Since then, the band has only toured sporadically. New bad Brains albums came with 2003’s I And I Survived (which, at the fans’ longtimme demand, was completely devoted to Dub and Reggae)and 2007’s Build A Nation (which had been in the making since 2005). In between, HR and his brother were touring with their Reggae outfit The Dub Agents, and released the Out Of Bounds album through the DIA Records imprint. With Hey Wella, which was originally planned for release on September 16 and already saw “Didn’t I Tell You” issued as a single August 5th, HR returns to the spotlight as a solo artist. Incidently, the single is possibly one of the heaviest songs on the album! Funny isn’t it, that this solo project (which is supposed to be a vehicle for HR to bring out his Reggae and Dub flavoured material, still has quite a bit of truly heavy guitar played in its material (always has, by the way, since the beginning of the project). In fact, there’s only three real Reggae tracks with the beautiful “Yo Here We Go”, the I & I inspired “Luv Comes First”, and the ballad “We Belong Together”. Co-songwriting for the album came courtesy of drummer/ co-producer Grant “OG” Garretson (whom also plays guitar on 7 of the songs). Further instrumentation saw HR himself adding guitar on “Didn’t I Tell You” and “It’s On”, Jerry “Geezer” Barrett playing all bass, plus one Jason “Jahson” Browning and Pablo Fiasco respectively playing guitar and keyboards on the Reggae tunes as well as “It’s On”. Wha’s it all sound like? Well, if ya ever ‘eard Bad Brains in thei’ calmest mode, ye’ve got an idea! Sorry ‘bout that slang bit…wanna actually lísten to some Humen Rights music? Just surf on over to myspace.com/hrofficial to find two songs off the new album (and funny again how it’s the heavier songs that are posted…well, not quite, because the instrumental reprise of the title track – renamed “Hey Wella (Jazz)”, although I have no idea what-so-ever how “Jazz” has anything to do with this Metal-ised track! By the way, the other posted track…”Reborn From The Dead” is again one of the heavier ones on the album. Just like the reprise of the title song – for some weird reason it was renamed “Hey Well” (Jazz)”, while no amount of Jazz is included at all…in fact, the track can rather be seen as containing the highest “Metal” content on the album – which closes the album, it is an instrumental which has a perfect reason for existance on this album!). Only 11 tracks make for a total listening time of just over 31 minutes…which I simply find too short! I’ve always been very partial to Bad Brains ànd Human Rights (which I’ve both seen on stage), and this album was simply a very nice reminder of my “good ole’ days”. Well…if anything, it’s convinced me that those days haven’t quite gone altogether! 98/100 Tony |