moe.: Wormwood : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Here's what Moe have going for them: a rhythm section that elevates the ordinary jam-band improv with a working knowledge of R&B and funk backbeats; the guitarist Chuck Garvey, who on the title track of this erratic live effort plays intense prayer-meeting slide; a repertoire that encompasses truly mindless refrains and disarmingly beautiful instrumental interludes.

The one thing the Buffalo, New York, quintet lacks: tunes that make the most of their instrumental strengths. Wormwood -- an album of new songs recorded on the band's fall tour and subsequently tweaked in the studio with guitar overdubs and such -- is plenty engaging when it's solo time. But it's downright tedious when the Moe musicians aspire to Grateful Dead-ish philosophy ("Gone") or, more laughably, Southern rock ("Okayalright," which copyright lawyers might argue sits a tad too close to "Sweet Home Alabama"). For a band whose rep lies mostly on the road, recording live and sweetening later was a smart strategy; all Moe need now are more-substantial songs.

TOM MOON
(From RS 916 – February 20, 2003)