Brad Dubay – Planet 9 (Album Review)

Brad Dubay makes his debut with Planet 9, a 12-track blues and rock fusion.

‘River Festival’ is the album’s first song. It’s instrumental and goes without vocals. This is a song where you just sit back, relax and listen without worrying about the non-existent words. I fell in love with the song from the start. Perhaps it’s the drums. And then you get the slightly distorted rock guitar. At some point, there’s an organ which produces this melodic, if not cheesy tune. Say what you will, but it’s a happy song. There’s also a blues guitar.

So while this and that instrument comes and go, drums remain in the background. At one point, after all instruments have disappeared, you just have the rock guitar playing, which is then followed by the blues guitar.  

Drums and distorted guitar – understated drums, I should say – meet us again on ‘You Did It To Yourself’. The drums again are persistent, and you have the guitar playing and then pausing in a stop-start sequence.

And just the second you start thinking that you’re about to get another song without vocals, we are introduced to Brad Dubay and his voice in the 45^th second. ‘Oh, baby! You did it to yourself!’, he sings.

This leaves me thinking: this guy has got a nice voice. Although I find his voice nice, I imagine it would be super nice if it was deeper. Perhaps that’s me wanting a deep blues voice that’s soothing. That’s not what you get from Brad Dubay. His voice is rather edgy or a little rough.

I know I might be contradicting my earlier statement about his voice being nice, but here’s my justification: his voice is not pop or deep either. Somewhere in the middle.

Instrument-wise, the mixture of guitar and vintage Hammond organ on ‘You Did It To Yourself’ is out of this world, and when he lets those two instruments play, again you just wanna sway your head, close your eyes and be lost in the song.

Lyrics-wise, it’s a love song, you will – and Brad Dubay uses a couple of devices here. The lyrical persona seems to be having a moment of schadenfreude. They say there’s no equivalent of this German word in English, but it’s more like, ‘Look I told you not to do this. But you went and did it. So I’m not gonna feel sorry for you’. Except in this case, the person in question is a lover. In the Nguni languages, we say ‘uzenzile akakhalelwa’. This is more like, ‘If you put yourself in a tight situation, we’re not gonna cry for you’. Hard realism, if you will.

The persona loved the lover, but is hyperbolic, if you will: while they say that they have always loved the lover – loving them like nobody else – they first ask whether they realize what the lover meant to them, later then saying they’d have given them everything in the deeper sea. That line is cheesy, but if the instrumentation on the song is cheesy too, I’m all for it.

Distorted guitar starts us off on ‘The Traveller’. Brad Dubay sounds different here, if not understated. You’d swear he was another singer – perhaps a young pop singer. The usual instruments are here, with the instrumentation almost similar with that on the previous song. This gives the album the same feel – which is my way of trying not to be critical of sameness. But, if there’s anything different here, it’s that the distorted guitar seems to be the mainstay instrument on the song, and at times it just plays. Vocally, you feel that Brad Dubay was in a mood to sing.

Whenever I review a song where I feel the musicians just wanted to song, I can never be too critical of the song even if it might not be a great song.

Drums in quick succession start us of on ‘Cannonball’, the second song without vocals on Power 9. Of course they don’t go alone. This album makes sure the distorted guitar is a regular companion. There’s a grunge feel to the song – but it’s a grunge setup with melodic accompaniment.

Although the drums are less furious, at some points in the background, Brad Dubay lets them play solo at some point. But if the distorted guitar is commonplace on the album, at some point Brad Dubay twists it in a different and thick manner – this to a listener’s delight. If there’s no rock without the crunchy guitar, then at least you have to have it in different variations. Say what you will of the song – one minute you think drums are the star of the show, and the next minute you have the guitar. Brad Dubay always keeps you on the move.

The tempo is rather low on ‘In Love With You’. At one point, I’m happy that our lyrical persona is in love, and my happiness seems immature when I hear that they seem to want this lover back. You get the blues guitar here. Brad Dubay’s voice sounds the sweetest here. I’m left thinking you’ll still have a nice song even if all the instruments were to be removed. I can’t get enough of the part where he sings ‘Cause I love you’, a part which he repeats a number of times.

Distorted guitar and his usual edgy voice return on ‘On The Road’, a song that might just as well be the title of Jack Kerouac’s novel. The crunchy guitar has some thick distortion to it. And Brad Dubay’s Hammond is present again. Solo at some point, it’s a different type of crunch. When you listen to this – drums also playing – you can’t help moving your leg – or at least you want to reach for your imaginary drums or guitar.

‘Headed out on the road’, are some of the lyrics I make out. I like the song’s content being not about love. ‘Hot sun beating down’, you hear him sing, and at another time, ‘going from town to town’.

The crunchy guitar is still with us early on  ‘Don’t Want No Doctor’. It disappears, making way for a thick beat, which is accompanied by melodic touches. The lyrical persona here doesn’t want no doctor, and wants to be left alone. All they need, they say, is to be taken home, since the pills are killing them. It’s a strange song, and I don’t think Brad Dubay has done justice to the story. However you wanna read it, though, this is protest song and we get the message: our persona doesn’t want no doctor. Surely, doctors listening to the song also get the message!

From a song with a provocative title, we now go to happy land with ‘Heavenly Paradise’. Brad Dubay leaves the songs without vocals to the ones with utopian-sounding titles. You get the piano here, and the sentimental key is left to do its thing.

Drums and bluesy guitar start us off on ‘Choose Love’. Brad Dubay’s voice is edgy once more on the song. He’s upbeat on the song. That characteristic alone makes this song a ten out of ten! Thematically, this is a song where the lyrical persona says they’ve got an important message – a message that would brighten people up if they listened. The power is with them, we hear, to choose love – a thing they admit it’s not easy. A song of encouragement, really.

Although the instrumentation proceeds to the usual, the sound is different on ‘If You Wanna Be Mine’. You get the Hammond sound, and the drums – although they are heavy and not too rhythmic. ‘If you wanna be mine’, Brad Dubay’s refrain goes for a number of times, before he then says, ‘treat me fine’. Rhyming is achieved by Brad Dubay going, ‘If you wanna be mine, treat me fine’. And then, using repetition once more, you hear him go, ‘You look so divine!’. He sings this a number of times before he goes, ‘maybe that’s my sign!’. This shows him twisting the hooks.

Brad Dubay sings early on ‘I’ve Been Your Fool’. There’s that edginess in his voice. Perhaps some wariness. You hear him sing, ‘I’ve been your fool. I’ve been blind to you’. ‘Our love’s gone’, he also sings, and you can’t help but start feeling for the lyrical persona. The organ here is sentimental, to say nothing of the guitar.

As it was at the beginning of Planet 9, so it is at the end. Having started with a song without vocals, we end with ‘Nebula’ – another track without words. There’s a slow build start to the song. Although you go through different moods because of the instruments like the bluesy guitar, thicker than usual drums and piano, the song is partly melancholic. Other parts might not be as melancholic. Either way, the melancholic does not go away for me.

SCORE/Excellent: To say that this is an excellent album is perhaps an understatement. The guitar licks are as much as the melodic sounds, but even if that might be a stretch, this sound is monotonous. So it perhaps feels a bit harsh for me not to give Planet 9 an outstanding score, but on the whole it misses a couple of points.

When it comes to blues or jazz, you expect the saxophone to be present.  I wanted it to be there but it never came through.

Brad Dubay plays multiple instruments, but a part of me asks: why can’t he pick one and explore it in a number of ways? Of course, that’s a mental experiment from my side.        

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