It’s not often a band is able to corner the market the way Galactic has for the better part of the last decade. A deft fusion of classic styles such as New Orleans funk, jazz, with modern ones like hip-hop is par for the course, and on their new EP, Carnivale Electricos, Galactic continue to be the masters of their own game. The album blasts off with a rollicking, baritone sax-driven Mardis Gras jam – “Ha Di Ka” – which quickly establishes the overarching theme of Carnivale as an album. You guessed it…Fat Tuesday itself, the merriest time of the year in the band’s native New Orleans. Galactic manages to move their brand of funk to new heights, however, by drawing more influence than ever before from another country in which Carnivale, overtly referenced in the album’s title, is a widely and religiously celebrated day…Brazil. The use of Latin styles, particularly samba and one of its signature drums – the tambourim – add an entire new layer of sound to the rich stew of genres from which Galactic readily draws.
With one of the best backbeat drummers in the world at the helm in Stanton Moore, songs like “Karate” and “Ash Wednesday Sunrise” add depth and variation to an album that is brimming with celebratory brassy funk, sometimes to a fault. Carnivale Electricos is undoubtedly meant as a feel-good, party album to please the festivalgoers for whom Galactic has spent fifteen years jamming. Unfortunately, the high-energy songs sometimes feel a bit heavy-handed and a bit too dynamically steady. For a band that must struggle to capture the energy of their live performances on record, this is an understandable misstep. The somewhat out of character appearance of fellow New Orelenian Mystikal was mildly amusing, if not somewhat distracting, and was the only brief moment that seems to let up along Glactic’s jubilant Carnivale Electricos parade of sound.
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