The Hot Grits

This is the 2nd Album by the 11 piece Afro/Soul band the Hot Grits.

This 7 track album features the song 'Headlights' (which had its great music video banned by TVNZ censors for having four year old kids acting like adults on a night out in town, downing shots of milk). This was the bands first ever music video and also the first music video to be banned by TVNZ since 1988, so great work!

In December '08 this video won the 'Golden Jandal' at Radio Active’s 'Handle the Jandal Video Awards' for best non-funded music video. This has been great publicity for the band and song, but what about the album? What’s their music like? Well they are hard to pigeon-hole. Psychedelic rock, Soul and Afrobeat is how they choose to describe their style, and from track one 'WWF' you can hear a mix of all of these straight away.

Kicking off with funky bass riffs, big sax and trombone lines, 70’s style wah-guitar and complex beats, you can hear a tight band with a great album production throughout. The vocals are great, though the lyrics are not the main focus of this band. The overall sound is. The vocalists fit the style of the band as they weave in and out of songs without making them the main focus.

I can’t help making the comparison of their style to that of British funk jazz band 'The James Taylor Quartet' who performed the original 'Starsky and Hutch' theme, but THG’s have a much more modern and up to date feel to them. The album has made me want to go and see them live in concert where I think I will enjoy them even more. It’s a great summer album and if you appreciate listening to World Music and very talented musicians, you will enjoy this.