Various Artists
Skaliente (Grita!)
by Marc Hirsh
Various Artists
Skaliente (Grita!)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in Space City Rock, Fall 1999
The kids today love their ska. With at least three distinct generations of the stuff disseminating pretty widely throughout the country (and other parts of the world), it's pretty easy-access stuff, and if I had to guess, I'd say it's probably the largest underground music out there. So why is it that the big successes seem to be compromises? The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Reel Big Fish throw-in some hardcore and pop, Goldfinger creates a punk hybrid, Sublime adds rap to the mix. And don't get me started on No Doubt. When it's time to put their money where their mouths are, the kids panic and get terrified of the real stuff.
Of course, as per the above, the real stuff is really damn hard to locate these days. So Grita! takes the opposite tack, and looks to marginalize it even further with Skaliente, focusing (or so it would seem) on Spanish-language and Hispanic-related ska. The plan almost works, probably because Latino and ska seem to fit a lot better than many of the other hybrids; maybe it's because to get from Jamaica to the U.S.A., you've gotta get past Cuba or Mexico. Maybe there's something in the Caribbean. Who knows? In any event, most of the songs on Skaliente are sung in Spanish, and for English speakers, a couple others may as well be (I can't tell what language Skunk's "Ongi Gaizki" is in).
The best tracks are, naturally, the ones that hit their groove and don't lose their nerve along the way. The first three cuts are all winners, especially Rancid's kickoff "Lethal," which slow, hard and brutal as hell. The Allstonians' (mostly) instrumental "V.F.W." gives a nice little downshift, despite what I'm pretty sure is a faster tempo. "Hey Santera" by Viva Malpache! tenses up its chorus by adding distortion, but it manages to avoid the pitfalls of ska-core (and, come to think of it, alt-rock) by not deciding that the distortion is the point from there on out. Later on, Hepcat's incredibly supple "Rudies All Around" celebrates rudeboy culture and is probably the closest you will ever come to an island tour in a 4-minute song.
The worthwhile songs tend to be outnumbered by the lesser cuts, though. Los Skarnales' "De Repente" is actually a quite nice slow ska groove, which is why it's a disappointment when the double-time midsection comes as enough a downer to derail the song. Skunk's cut is zippy but aimless and struggles to find a conclusion. "Tengo Tiempo Para Ti" by the Voodoo Glow Skulls doesn't even seem to be ska; it's as though a hardcore group bullied its way into the party. The most egregious mistake, however, belongs to the Blind Pigs covering "Revolution Rock" (yes, that "Revolution Rock"), which not only doesn't fit in thematically with the rest of the CD but switches from ska to punk midway for no good reason. One or the other, fellas, one or the other.
This mixed bag seems to indicate an interesting dilemma that's been becoming more apparent in recent years: has ska finally reached a level equivalent to blues, where it's simple as pie to play but hard as hell to play really well? There's a lot of great music being made out there, and there's a lot of tripe. It's just too bad that the two have to be found side by side. Skaliente is exhibit A.