self-released

The group calls themselves Side Project. They’ve dubbed their debut Our Last Album. Quite perplexing isn’t it? Their song titles run the gamut from “Hippos in the Kitchen,” to “Too Funkee Shoes,” and even “Green Regs and Jam.” And to top it off, these weirdoes don’t do much singing — Side Project is a mix of psychedelia, funk, jazz, and a little bit of rock thrown in for good measure.

Hailing from sunny Florida, the sextet employs the use of a trombone and an E.W.I. that’s an electric wind instrument. They also cite influences such as Phish who doesn’t these days? Tool, Herbie Hancock, Primus, and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones. It’s a pretty odd mix to say the least, but one can hear the Phish influences in the thick and drawn out jams, as well as the beginning of “Time,” which (with its trombone chaos) conjures up images of “Riker’s Mailbox” from Hoist, while the Primus homage comes in the opening “Hippos” track with a few sparse and random lyrics. There are even some Nirvana-like guitar riffs on “Ryan’s Blues.” As for Tool? Well, I just don’t know.

While the band does have some potential, it’s fairly obvious how hard they are trying to break out and be what they think is “different.” On “Green Regs and Jam,” they rap: “I twist a joint and smoke a joint and then I twist three more.” It’s a pretty safe bet that they’ve got a Sublime CD or two in their record collections. Maybe they don’t sound exactly like one band per se, but they do sound like a hodge-podge of other bands put together. The problem, though, is that they don’t blend the sounds of Nirvana and Phish on one song: rather, one song sounds a lot like Phish, and another sounds a lot like Nirvana. It’s so drastic that they don’t even sound like the same band from track to track.

Side Project should either pick an identity or carve one out of their own, or else the ironic title of their first album could become reality.