Fishbone

On Still Stuck in Your Throat, the band's first album in six-too-many years, Fishbone once again presents us with its merry-go-round assortment of horn-driven ska, funk, punk, soul, metal, and reggae music all wrapped into the legendary band's signature style. Although the energy jumps out of the speakers before the music even starts (with frontman/saxophonist Angelo Moore panting and heaving like the lunatic that audiences know and love), Fishbone on CD amounts to another excuse to go see the band perform live. Not surprisingly, Moore and long-time bassist Norwood Fisher have skewed the band's lineup once again, but they seem to wring magic out of whoever they're playing with — at least onstage. Although this incarnation of Fishbone keeps its enthusiasm unbridled on every song, the band continues to be underserved by production in a way that's hard to pinpoint. And former Suicidal Tendencies lead ax man Rocky George ends up showing how big his predecessors' shoes really were in spite of his extensive jazz vocabulary. It's true that Still Stuck will get a party bumpin' if you crank it loud enough, but at this point, we should just be thankful that Fishbone is still around.