One way to describe New Monsoon is to say the band is the Allman Brothers with a world beat.

The San Francisco band won the award for Emerging Artist of the Year in 2004 by jambase.com. They have played some of the country's biggest festivals, like Bonaroo and Austin City Limits. New Monsoon has found a way to successfully combine a number of musical genres and make it sound good.

Downstream is the band's second album and it contains 13 tracks of music lasting over an hour. New Monsoon combines the traditional instruments found in a rock band, adds a banjo and Dobro, and combines them with a digeridoo (an instrument from the Australian Outback) and percussion instruments from India, Brazil and Latin countries to provide a sound that brings the world together as only music can.

And, just in case there's any doubt about the band's ability to play some flat-out guitar blues-rock, New Monsoon dispells all doubt with "Double Clutch" and "Circle." Overall, Downstream is a nice CD and well worth the time to listen.

by Sherrill Fulghum
Rambles.NET
26 August 2006

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