The three-time Grammy award-winning funk/fusion jam band, Snarky Puppy, is back with their thirteenth full-length release – a vast musical melting pot of slick instrumentals, and tight grooves.

The 19-man ensemble – led by producer-composer-bassist-guitarist-keyboardist extraordinaire, Michael League – goes in a slightly different direction on this eight-song collection of instrumental tracks. The band has foregone relying on their signature explosive, riff-driven melodic jams for a more groove-oriented, atmospheric vibe. Of this shift in sound, League says in a Rolling Stone interview with David Browne, “You risk alienating people who love the big, exciting moments […] But as we get older, the guys are into the idea of nice grooves and sounds, especially the farther away they get from being young! Those things appeal to you more than crazy licks. We’re more into setting up nice grooves that we like and sitting with things a bit longer.”

While Snarky Puppy fans have grown to expect supercharged licks and on-a-dime transitions, the absence of these trademarks does not at all result in a sound that is less exciting or infectious. If anything, the personal and musical growth League mentioned translates into a larger sound that is given the chance to stretch out and grow within each cut. Whereas a younger Snarky Puppy may have given us a barrage of face-melting, jaw-dropping flashes of catchy melodic runs and turns, Immigrance sees the band giving their musicianship more room to breathe – to see each theme and idea all the way through, taking their songs to more fleshed-out and cohesive places.

The first song on the album, “Chonks,” is the perfect bridge between what fans are likely to expect and where the band intends to take them in the seven tracks to follow. A syncopated, crunchy electric guitar riff unfolds into a sea of horn harmonies and a lead synth melody wailing along in the upper registers. Each section of the band gets a say in this nearly eight-and-a-half-minute exercise in funkiness. With this opening track, Snarky Puppy gives listeners all the nimble chops that they have grown to love over the years but with a hint of the newly discovered restraint that the band favors on the rest of the album. This song is the nexus between old and new – an introduction that proves to be as smart as it is fun.

Once “Chonks” ends, in a beautifully smooth and unexpected woodwind and string progression, Snarky Puppy roots us firmly in their new sound. “Bigly Strictness” is all about mood. Layers of open and refreshingly strange chords take turns billowing legato and hammering staccato while the lead guitar, horns, and keys exchange solos. The result transports the listener to some musically daring (and even pleasantly unsettling) places.

By the time we arrive at track three, “Coven,” groove and atmosphere rule supreme. A minimalistic drum track props up a funky, meandering bass line, quick flashes of harmonic horns, and a single synth note modulating above everything else. The song slowly builds into a deep and watery groove that waxes and wanes its way to a climactic, all-hands-on-deck finish.

After the slow fade out of “Coven,” Snarky Puppy perks back up on “Bling Bling,” a sparkly, upbeat romp led by complexly syncopated synth chords and a drum beat taken straight out of the playbook of old-school ’90s hip hop. Quietly psychedelic at times and confidently jammy at others, this track is poised to satisfy the entirety of Snarky Puppy’s extremely diverse fanbase.

The album moves forward in alterations of big bursts of jam band fun and grooves of highly textured chords. This pattern continues on “Xavi,” “While We’re Young,” and “Bad Kids to the Back,” leading us to the album’s final piece, which is unlike anything Snarky Puppy has put out before. If “Chonks” could be viewed as a bridge between the band’s older sound and the new direction of Immigrance, perhaps “Even Us” can be considered a hint at what’s to come – a declaration of yet another evolution. “Even Us” employs elements of classical guitar, Eastern scales, and a lonely violin wandering around a somber melody. The result, especially once the beat builds itself up from a sparse and airy ballad, can only be described as melancholic gypsy funk. This composition inspires an emotional resonance that Snarky Puppy does not typically aim for. It is a perfectly unexpected way to close an album that keeps the listener on their toes every step of the way.

Immigrance shows that Snarky Puppy is not afraid to grow and mature their sound and that they have more than enough talent to execute that growth with grace and groove. Music lovers of all walks of life should give this album a listen. Immigrance proves that – as the title may imply – musical genres, like borders, can (and should) be crossed.

Immigrance

Dustin DiPaulo is a writer and musician from Rochester, New York. He received his MFA in Creative Writing fromFlorida Atlantic University and can most likely be found at a local concert, dive bar, or comedy club (if he’s not getting lost somewhere in the woods).

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