BADBADNOTGOOD Album Review: “III”

When “III” starts off, you know that there’s something more mature about the trio to begin with. Their production value has gone from GarageBand to full studio. Their skills in no way have decreased and instead, their experimentation with more instruments, synthesizers, and techniques do well to show progress and still keep some of the old stuff fresh in our heads. “Triangle” sounds like a traditional Monk track in the very beginning and it sort of unravels in snare hits and piano flutters that get darker with every note. “Can’t Stay the Night” does the same, with its dark atmosphere that’s brought up even more by the plucked synth bass that seems to circle around your headphones. “Confessions” is where stuff really picks up, and with Leland Whitty (saxophonist and frequent collaborator), it has this hauntingly beautiful sax motif that just goes through higher minor scales and then the choruses just burst with such sensuality that you wish this was in a love scene. Plus, to really bring in the intimacy, on the parts where it’s just Leland you can hear him just as he’s breathing into the sax which just puts me on edge, AH! So good.

If the first three tracks didn’t get you going and into their original stuff (because believe me, I didn’t like it at first listen until it got to track four), “Kaleidoscope” is going to do it for you. Combining subtle bass, shining electric piano, what sounds like a bassoon coming out of the corner of the room, and horns that these guys hit on the head the VERY. FIRST. TIME. Sounding like something out of an old 90’s courtroom drama, and then everything picks up when the bass starts belting out this 3 minute solo that keeps impressing you no matter how many times you repeat it. “Hedron” is the lead single off of this album and it brings you back to the old-school feel of BBNG with it just being about the piano, bass, and drums that bring you into this hip-hop groove and doesn’t let up when all three start going complete MAD. It may sound smooth at first, but don’t let this track fool you, this is what BBNG should sound like. These are the sounds that made me fall in love with them in the first place.

Despite all of these things though, there might be a couple moments where this doesn’t grip me in the way I wanted them to. Like I said, it takes a couple of tracks to get into with “Kaleidoscope” being the main catalyst to the album. It’s like Breaking Bad, you’ve gotta wait a couple episodes to get into it. “Eyes Closed” seems like it wasn’t even written by BBNG, it sounds like a companion piece of Interpol and Grizzly Bear, and I wasn’t feeling it too much. “Since You Asked Kindly” isn’t a mess, per say, but I would’ve let them do another “Definitely, Still” where it was smoother and more jazz-oriented than this persistent electronic odyssey. And “CS60” is just… weird, combining like 3 different genres into something that kind of ends up a jumbled mess. The string arrangements are nice, and in the first moment where it seems like an experimental 70’s contemporary jazz act like Spyro Gyra are all-around decent, but then it hits like a brick with the trap/hip-hop influence and it doesn’t do a closing song justice. This song doesn’t have the flow that some of the other straight jazz tracks do and it’s just unappealing.

Final Verdict: For their first real collection of original material, BBNG do pull off a decent amount of tricks and enjoyable tracks, but this is no hat trick. I love the first two albums more than this one, but not by much. This shows that the trio is coming into its own and pursuing something wonderful that I don’t want to miss. The World of Jazz is either going to have a legendary band or an underrated gem. Either is fine with me.