IV - Pay the Piper

Israel Vibration

Pay the Piper

Well, I suppose Israel Vibration was due for a poor effort. Though well received by many diehard fans, I found Pay the Piper to be lacking. It has the group's classic roots sound, but the songs are just ho-hum. You can't help but blame a large part of this on the absence of Albert Craig, who decided to pursue a solo project. Although all 3 members have always been talented songwriters and performers, Craig was always my favorite. His gravel-voiced, deliberate style added a sense of fun funkiness to Israel Vibration's material. Without him, the tracks on Pay the Piper seem dry, without much edge. The possible exceptions are "Exploitation" and the title cut, which are bona fide up-tempo rock steady. This, of course, doesn't mean that they're particularly good, just unique. Almost as if sensing the void of Craig's style, Cecil Spence contributes a pair of tunes -- "Nuttin' Nah Bruk" and "So Much Youths" -- that are slow, funky, and which contain Craig-like drowsy vocals. They're not as good as Craig would've done, but they're OK. Without a third party, of course, the 3-part harmony suffers a bit also; they even go so far as to replace the third part with various women -- Pam Hall, Fiona, and Annie McDaniel -- which actually doesn't sound bad, especially on the oddly titled "Surfin." It's hard to pick out any other tunes that stand out ("Hard Road" and "Systematical Fraud" are OK), since they are all so unspectacular. While little on Pay the Piper is ostensibly bad, it has the generic sound that you might expect newcomers to Israel Vibration's heavy roots style would generalize them as having. The sound is generally the same as it always has been, but the drab songwriting makes this album sound shallow and lifeless.

Pay the Piper


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