The common stereotype of jam bands seems to be that they’re made up of bearded musos trading guitar solos longer than Ramones albums back and forth for whole shows. The truth of the matter is that it might be a lot more accurate than most performers would want to admit, but from time to time you get bands that fly in the face of that in spectacular fashion. From time to time you get the kind of bands that you’d actually want to see improvise and experiment for the majority of their live shows and riff on the same motif for a good fifteen minutes or so, and New York’s very own Assembly of Dust are precisely one of those bands. The key here is that while most jam bands spend their shows noodling away and showing off their skill on their instruments, Assembly of Dust show off the whole quintet’s almost telepathic chemistry, and their ability to create whole unified passages of songs absolutely on the fly. To see the band in full flight, five guys playing as one, is a pretty beautiful sight, and that’s before one even takes into account the mastery they have of their roots rock imbued sound. This is a band that could follow and match My Morning Jacket and Wilco in the next generation of classic Americana-rock bands, and if the term jam band puts you off, just know that It’s their mastery of song craft that puts them head and shoulders above the rest. Highly recommended.
Anastasia Coope
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