Horace X

• Sackbutt [Omnium, 2003] A-
• Strategy [Omnium, 2005] *

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Sackbutt [Omnium, 2003]
Lined up all in a row, the half-assed headliners they've supported for over a decade--Fun-Da-Mental, Transglobal Underground, Asian Dub Foundation, Banco de Gaia (no Three Mustaphas Three?)--compel one to admit that in the U.K., attempted world-music bands aren't the New Age saps who spread their agape over our folk circuit like tofu mayonnaise. Techno plus ragga plus bhangra plus West Asia plus Eastern Europe equals fully multicultural fusions that invariably misfire in the end. But this one sparks like I'd hoped Fun-Da-Mental would--which means it sounds like nothing I've heard. Nonstop dance drive, Roma clarinet jazz, violin sans bluegrass or sonata, ragga-flavored because the singer's Jamaican. Plus they named their debut after a medieval trombone normally spelled with one T. A-

Strategy [Omnium, 2005]
Comfier in its ska-polka pan-everythingism, and less galvanizing ("She Want," "Strategy"). *