Sublime - Sublime (1996)

We've been watching Sublime's constant growth in popularity during these past few years. With electric live performances, a pair of solid indie label releases and well-timed placement of individual songs on a variety of soundtrack and compilation albums, Sublime managed to create a widespread buzz on the street with their original blend of punk, rap, reggae/ska and psychedelic-tinged hip-hop. They were poised for greatness, perhaps the hottest, freshest band to break-out of the indie rock world since Nirvana.

After completing the band's self-titled third album – a major label deal between their indie label Skunk Records and the multi-national MCA – Sublime frontman Brad Nowell succumbed to the plague of drug abuse that is so widespread in the rock world these days, overdosing on heroin last summer. The loss of their charismatic, extremely talented singer/songwriter/guitarist has turned Sublime's greatest artistic triumph into their sadly-lamented swan song. Nowell was the architect of Sublime's unique sound, the band his artistic vision in the flesh. Without him, the trio no longer exists.

It's a damn shame, too, because Nowell and Sublime created in Sublime, the album, a multi-textured, complex work that stands as one of year's best efforts. An artistic masterpiece that fuses the multi-cultural influences that drove the band with a myriad of musical styles, Sublime ties together Southern California street culture, in all of its wonderful diversity, into a splendid musical document. Produced with great care and precision by Paul Leary and David Kahne, listening to these grooves is like walking down the sidewalk in some great street bazaar. There's Hispanic hip-hop, Cali-styled hard-core punk, honest Jamaican reggae and a shopping list full of other musical and cultural influences absorbed with glee by Nowell and exhibited on Sublime.

Nowell was an impressive guitarist, with still-maturing technical skills and an ear for the hot riff. He had a fine vocal range, able to shout with the best of them or caress his lyrics like a long-lost love. His greatest talent was as a songwriter, however, an artist capable of boiling complex subjects down into street-smart simplicity. An fine example would be the song "Pawn Shop," with a dark reggae rhythm punctuated by Nowell's wicked guitar riffs and vocals repeating the line "down there at the pawn shop." After admonishing us that "it's a nifty place to shop" Nowell brings this short, six-line song home with the closing lines, "what has been sold is not strictly made of stone, please remember, it's flesh and bone," summing up the emotional toll that is extracted by poverty as symbolized by the pawn shop, known on the street as the "poor person's banker."

There's plenty of excellent material to be found on Sublime: "Under My Voodoo" is a punk-tinged psychedelic rocker that evokes the spirit of Hendrix; "Get Ready" mixes sly hip-hop and ska beats with a tale of music, marijuana and the law; the sexual antics of "Caress Me" are underlined with the hilarious line "I'm hornier than Ron Jeremy;" the sprightly, electric "What I Got" is a joyful exclamation of life and love while "Paddle Out" outlines "all the best spots in the land," a lesson in geography provided in innocence from a homeboy seeing the world outside of the 'hood for the first time.

Only time will tell if Bradley Nowell receives the acclaim he so richly deserves, whether he'll be deified alongside legends like Darby Crash and Sid Vicious or sadly slip into obscurity. For a single, shining moment, however, with the release of Sublime, he has received an artistic immortality that will surely withstand any test of time. (Skunk Records/MCA)

(Click on the CD cover to buy a copy of Sublime from Amazon.com)