The Deal: The Mule goes West. West Jamaica, that is, for a reggae teardown.
The Good: The Mule is known for deconstructing melodies, splintering them into unrecognizable shards. Their latest target is a bit broader, deconstructing a whole musical genre. Mighty High is ostensibly reggae versions of R&B covers. But Mule’s kick-it-to-smitereeens policy prevails and Haynes’ bigfoot guitar-and-vocal print slam it back into their southern rockin’ power-trio mode. There’s no trace of Al Green on the Mule’s cover of the Rev.’s 1971 release “I’m A Ram.” This reggae’s got funk a-plenty, but the soul’s been removed. The Stones’ “Play with Fire” is unrecognizable for about two minutes until Michael Franti starts to sing. He stays pretty close to the original melody, as does Haynes on his vocal turn. But when Haynes takes it back on guitar, he scatters the ashes. Might as well skip the rest of the tune, which degenerates into an irritating Franti-rap. The highlight of this deal is Toots Hibbert on Otis’ “Hard To Handle.” It’s pretty much note-for-note like he did it on ’88s Toots in Memphis, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Hibbert is in glorious voice as he leads this production. There won’t be no deconstruction with Toots in charge – his is the best reggae in the bizness and you’d be a fool to fool with it. Haynes has the balls to stand up to Toots vocally for part of a verse, but the good sense to lay off with the guitar shattering. He gets in few sparse licks before Toots blasts him off with a lesson why, in his hands, reggae got soul.
The Bad: Thinly disguised gimmickry, except for Toots.
The Verdict: Buy it for Toots.
This article appears in Nov 21-27, 2007.
