Rating: NNN
Beyond the intensely spirited percussion on the second LP by party-rocking female drumming collective Wombboom!, If I Told You presents an ethnomusicological journey though the rhythmic cultures of Puerto Rico, Guinea and Ghana. The group’s hard-to-resist polyrhythmic clank gets more momentum from rousing chants throughout the short, high-impact sessions captured on these tracks. But there’s too great a disconnect between the percussive rumble and the ambient, spiritual keyboard-based ballads, which aren’t as well recorded and don’t seem to belong on an otherwise riotous record.
Wombboom! rock your eardrums at the Church of the Holy Trinity Saturday (January 20).
