Selector Benzito

A little dub selection on ya.

Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires

So you all know that Scientist is hands-down tops in the world of dub. Well, this album is probably his strongest front-to-back. It works not only as a collection of grooves but also as a cohesive album that it brilliantly arranged.

The premise is very simple and is illustrated on the cover art. The drawing shows a collection of ghouls, ghosts and vampires all hanging out in a swamp. Scientist (Overton Brown) is boating around in one of those bayou fan-boats with a massive sound system strapped to the back. He is literally driving away the vampires by way of dub.

The album was supposedly mixed at midnight on Halloween in King Tubby's studio. The first track, "The Voodoo Curse," opens with a few evil laughs from the man at the controls, then quick drum roll and a driving bass beat. This first track doesn't go anywhere fast, instead it uses the space and the drone of the rhythm to take the listener out of the real world and into the dub. Only a few quick melody lines serve to break up this track. It's slow. Not a dancer or a shaker but it's there for a reason.

Scientist plays with a reverberating tone to introduce Prophet's vocals in "Dance Of the Vampires." Slick brass lines are featured on this track, and Scientist is inna fine style at 1:14, when he brings in the organ and the rhythm guitar, holds, then lets it all reverb into oblivion at 1:35. Towards the end of the song, a high toned percussion fades into a right side bongo. This song neglects to bring back the melody line in full force towards the end of the song, which is sometimes a Scientist signature.

"Blood On His Lips" is the first massive tune on the album. The feature here is the percussion from the Roots Radics' own Sticky. It serves to almost create the melody of the song, it certainly dictates the flow. The wah from the organ is all over the place, making the instrument unrecognizable in terms of it's melodic contribution. It instead serves as yet another percussive. The bass shakes you to the core.

The next track takes a bit of a step back in terms of thump. It cools things a notch down with the most prevalent instrument being a simple upstroke of the rhythm. Prophet's vocals "Hold on, to what you got...hold on baby," are placed brilliantly. (And another "oh oh oh oh ohha...and the man you gonna love, you gonna love." Another quick upstroke and a long eerie fade-out on a crisp guitar.

"This is the curse of the mummy!" Shouts Scientist. A brief pause. He coughs. A drum roll and the three most groovy piano notes open into a smash of horns and an absolutely SICK Hammond that adds it's wahed "de de do do" on the back side of the 16th beat. "The Mummy's Shroud" is the jam that turned Scott Benzenberg into Selector Benzito. I have literally listened to this tune hundreds of times. It gets better, always. What's most impressive about this song is how it both keeps the melody through the entirety of the track, yet somehow manages to build at every line. This song is a version of the Wailing Souls tune "Fire House Rock" and the original vocals come up twice in the dub version. I know this song better than any other, but it is the most difficult to write about. Just go listen to this MASSIVE CHUNE!

"The Corpse Rises" is a drone much like the very first track on the album. It is sandwiched between the two big ones on the album, and I think Mr. Brown put this track here to give you an opportunity to clean up the floor. It does, however, provide a perfectly placed upstroke breakdown in the middle, and the percussion provides a nice transition into the percussion-driven "Night of the Living Dead"

Track seven starts with a shout from Scientist, and takes a minute to get where in needs to be. It starts in the same kind of drone as track one, but a cymbal crash and a shaker beat from the percussionist Sticky gets things rolling. More frequent vocals and a smooth guitar line help start the head nod. The biggest thing to notice here is the breakdown in this song. Everything runs along smoothly until about 1:38, when Scientist kills everything but the bassline. He crashes the drum on every forth beat (but he skips one in the middle to make it funky!) The slow build ruptures at 2:20 with the Sticky shaker, with carries the track until a final jazzy guitar line fades out.

Michael Prophet's vocals are featured on this album from time to time, and he makes his first clear appearance after a real slinky guitar intro to "You Teeth in My Neck." Everything is on display to some extent in this track. It doesn't explode in the same ways that earlier tracks do, but the melody is prevalent, the bass is thumping, and the percussion is creating a back beat that counters the drum. "Let's live in love and I-nity." Righteous.

"Plague of Zombies" really is about the fall of the zombies. Scientist drove them back, and the zombie invasion is nearly over. This track is spacier than most on the album, but is also broken up by vocals or the organ at frequent intervals.

"Ghost of Frankenstein" is very different that most of the rest of the album. It's more cheery for one. The piano line is accompanied by an almost bluesy guitar that resembles the bassline. This track is also marked with lots of upstroked rhythm. The final track has a lovers feel to it. "I want you to know in this time, girl/That my heart, it's one of a kind." Scientist has rid the world of the evil curse of the vampires, and you have listened to one of the greatest albums of any genre.