Wailing Trees ADD

Review

Album Review: Wailing Trees – The World Go Round

03/25/2015

by Valentin Zill

The Wailing Trees came together in 2012, but ever since they’ve been driving in the passing lane. The group from Vienne, France, a small town somewhere in the southern vicinity of Lyon, won the European Reggae Contest in 2014 and now presents their album debut. The sequel to their EP Selon Ma Nature is called The World Go Round and presents the hard-to-grasp style of the band on 14 tracks.

The seven members of Wailing Trees come from musical backgrounds as diverse as possible, and they audibly celebrate their diversity. While reggae is clearly the common ground here, it is difficult to describe their style in detail. Jazz, hip hop, rock, punk rock, rumba, even elements of classical music shine through. The texture of their songs is often closer to jazz than to reggae, they definitely know and like Groundation’s opus. What really sets them apart from French reggae giants like Dub Inc, Danakil and Sinsemilia are their lyrics–they’re kept in English for the most part and thus much more accessible for international markets.

Sure, The World Go Round doesn’t sound as polished as the more recent albums released by the above-mentioned groups. But then again, for an album debut, the Wailing Trees sport a quality that is rare at this stage of a band’s development. They are a promising project, to say the least.

From the initial Borders & Gaps to the last track Wise Man, the Wailing Trees refrain from employing those “Haile Jah!” standard phrases that so often keep the non-converted from turning to reggae music. The songwriting here is worth being checked out. Borders & Gaps, for instance, deals with human solitariness, the impossibility of true empathy as well as our feeling of belonging to the one human race.

Tears Of Heaven starts with a sample of an excerpt of a speech by Haile Selassie and asks what our ancestors might think of us and the state the world is in if they could see us now. This question–why is the world as it is?–is actually the leitmotif of the album. It shows just how young the band is. The album’s title track deals with it as well, but it is one of the more boring songs on this LP.

Shine As A Child evokes one of the most famous quotes of legendary German literary figure Erich Kästner: “Only he who grows up and stays a child is human.” (Original quote: “Nur wer erwachsen wird und ein Kind bleibt, ist ein Mensch.”) There’s uplifting songs such as Simple, Pleasure, a quiet reminder of the good things in life, and the wonderful Open Up.

Give it a shot!

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