I’m the first to admit when I’m wrong about something. When I first saw the album cover for the Under The Influnce of Giants (also referred to as UTIOG for short) self-titled release, a photo of the band sitting in an airplane surrounded by mannequins and a fake flight attendant, I thought they were going to be another by the book rock band. Boy was I wrong.
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Under The Influence Of Giants
|  Entertainment
 Art
"Under The Influence Of Giants"
(Island)
Released August 8, 2006
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The sound that emanates from Giants album is something totally different then anything I’ve ever come across. A serious dose of electro-funk mixed with rock sensibility makes for an interesting and fairly trippy sound. Not everyone will accept UTIOG up front but give it some time, they have the makings of a great cult following.
The opening track “Ah Ha” will remind listeners a lot of a white man’s answer to Gnarles Barkley’s St.Elsewhere album. Laying down funkadelic beats over singer Aaron Bruno’s almost feminine vocals “Ah Ha” struck me by its originality and ability to experiment with some very retro sounds. I could see it becoming a big dance club hit.
Track two mixes it up with a track in which Bruno exercises his vocals by translating back to a much more masculine voice that sounds a lot like Rob Thomas solo. The whole band seems to play a part on this track contributing to the chorus in a way that really gets you into the groove. The lyrics get a little hard to follow but that isn’t always a bad thing, sometimes it’s all about the beat and how it makes you move.
By track five things really get fun. The band has learned that guitars can be a good thing in their music, and they finally put them to good use. David Amezcua’s bass is really a present force on the entire track and it gives the music the depth that it seemed to be lacking at the beginning.
The band seems consistent in their sound, most of the their tracks start out pretty solid and fast and then branch off into their own disco excursion. It is hard to tell exactly who UTIOG’s influences are since they seem to have single handedly created their own genre.
People magazine called the bands music “ultra-groovy” and there is no doubt that it is. Track six’s “Heaven is full” shows the bands full range of abilities and just how much talent they have at their disposal. I always have massive amounts of respect for bands willing to experiment with music and UTIOG has earned that hands down. I can’t even describe one of the background noises that goes on the track, it is something like a spinning record put in a blender. It was a totally unique sound that mixed up a style that seemed fully established by halfway through the album.
My only major complaint is that given the 11 tracks on the album over half of them tend to sound a little too similar. As much as I loved the record, by track nine I was a little bored. Already a cross-genre band there is a lot of room for the band to move and I don’t think they do enough of that.
I can’t honestly say whether or not UTIOG will ever catch on to the mainstream as a real force. Their sounds might be a little too mellow for that kind of broad acceptance. If this were the 1970’s they would have been considered rebellious renegades, but in the nearly forty years of music since than much of their music sounds a bit recycled. The light rock crowd is going to love them.
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