One Listen To 311's "Five of Everything" Is More Than Enough To Satisfy

Kudos to 311 for successfully staying current in this climate of hyper disposable culture. The Nebraska band served notice that it would be a massive force in 1996 when "Down" streaked across rock airwaves. These guys combine rap, rock, and reggae to come up with a hybrid brand name that's distinctive. "Come Original" was astounding regardless of what chemical enhancements you had in your system. "Beautiful Disaster" racked up mileage thanks to homegrown lyrics that proved 311 never was taking itself too seriously. It was their party and you were handed an all-access pass. Somewhere along the way they managed to credibly cover The Cure's huge smash "Love Song". 311 put its own fogged up spin on it. The results were entrancing no end. 311 returns with "Stereolithic". From said release springs "Five of Everything". What diehards have come to deeply dig about 311 is evident across the board. Nick Hexum and Tim Mahoney pack some kind of one two punch on guitar. Their defiantly overt ways along the frets mirror one of those action sequences from the classic Pong video game (Yes, Ear Buzz guy has been circling the sun for a while now. Don't chuckle too much.) Up and down, in and out, hither and yon, to and fro, any way you paraphrase the unrestrained manic energy it lives and refuses to die by guitar. Big plus to them for allowing us to gorge on enough ear candy to make every other organ inside of us rot away in record time. Nick Hexum plays psychological lightning rod to the hilt. Thankfully he's not too Saturday Night Live Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey about it. What is it about the unquenchable thirst that keeps us forging ahead in the morning. It's never satiated but we're bound and determined to stem signs of a drought anyway. Doug "SA" Martinez, the hombre who made "Down" one for the 1996 rock books, does get his macho on but you'll have to be patient. Not until the bridge does he remind us that his band was the original rap/rock hybrid before Chester Bennington and Linkin Park made it an art form worth investigating. Depending on what your take home pay is, Doug's picked a fine space in music history to remind us what a drag our culture can be at its most superficial. So much time is either wasted or satisfyingly employed stripping away the artifices to get to what's really worth running life's race. Each of one of us pursues something. The seed of a dream resides inside each of us. Nick picks up on this urge to run, to get carried away by the rising tides of insisted upon mass consumption. As much as some of us try keeping up with the Joneses, once we're within reach of it getting the bling doesn't seem as much a victory as the chase to obtain. If 311 has thrived on its rep as fusing the genre elements I described earlier, make damned sure drummer Chad Sexton gets some love. Behind seemingly every vintage quality reggae tune there's a tight drum section to give it the wings it needs to orbit the stratosphere and then some. The reggae drum uncoils, then pounces like a venomous cobra. For 311, Chad's value comes from how firm a grasp he has on giving his instrument the proper cocktail hour enthusiasm. He shakes things up without getting falling down drunk at the bar stool. Familiar friends matter because of their trademark characteristics that let us know we're never too far away from each other. When that friend comes within earshot we embrace the essence full on. 311's essence is brought to full apogee through chord spanning adventures that spit on label applications. To 311's undiluted credit, "Five Of Everything" is one engrossing flight of rock/rap/reggae fancy.