IAN CARR'S NUCLEUS: ROOTS

With Jenkins gone from the band Carr stepped up to the plate with the Belladonna album, and the following Labyrinth certainly had it shinning moments, but there was something nagging at me when going through the Nucleus catalog in a chronological order and reaching this one. Sure the band, narrowed down somewhat from the last effort and adding yet another new guitarist (a Jocelyn Pitchen who pitches in and does a good job), are playing at a high tempo but there is little to differentiate this from the last two and no where can it be heard that the band have grown and are taking a new route (Routes?). Carr and company were falling into a hole which only allowed Nucleus to become repetitive and dull. The tunes on Roots are mere incidental pieces as the band now follow a formulaic pattern of making music. Roots can even be a little better than the Layrinth album but somewhere along the line there is going to have to be an album that will have to take the slack. For me Roots is the scapegoat of the bunch. The only true enjoyment I derived from the album was waiting tirelessly for each track to end and waiting for the next one to begin, but I was always left disappointed as Nucleus were offering nothing new anymore. Sure Carr adds some wah wah to his trumpet like his mentor Miles Davis did but it is old hat now. We get Joy Yates, electric piano player David MacRae's wife, adding some vocal on "Images" but I failed to be taken in by its emotive element but was rather bored by the whole experience. "Caliban" is alright, part of a larger commissioned piece rehashed I believe, while I also heard some salsa moods here somewhere and I fucking hate salsa, even if Brian Smith is a decent tenor player. And so while the playing is typically good the album really is unnecessary. Sure I could have dropped a few negative points, slipped in a few superlatives and added a couple of extra stars to the rating but that would be missing the point. six albums in a three year period and with a host of musicians coming and going Nucleus was feeling the weight. Rather than Nucleus Roots it looks more a case of Nucleus Rots.