I’m listening to the radio one day, and an interview with Jada Pinkett Smith concerning her new metal band is on during the commercials. The reporter says that her new band, Wicked Wisdom is playing select dates at Ozzfest. Needless to say this is an unexpected surprise to me, and I’m sure about every other person listening to the interview. What Jada had to say in the interview was that basically she liked trying out different things, and that this was her latest project, but she wants it to be a long-term arrangement.
Well, I finally picked this up on the day of release, and I was fairly shocked at what I was hearing on the first track,
Yesterday Don’t Mean. Fast pounding double bass, and fast metal guitar riffing open the song. Soon Jada enters with some heavy verses, but soon goes into the chorus where She yells, “Yesterday don’t mean *** today” multiple times over, and over while there’s a progressing guitar riff behind her, as well as the fast double bass once again.
Yesterday Don’t Mean opened the self-titled album impressively, and kept my interest easily. Smith’s voice was even quite nice, but did feel a little weird alongside the extremely heavy music. To bad it’s one of the few actually great songs on the album.
Something Inside Of Me is one of the two singles off of Wicked Wisdom, but that doesn’t nescesarily mean it’s one of the more impressive songs. Even though it’s the second song on the album, the music is starting to feel bland. Power chords are a constant with more double bass. There’s nothing exactly wrong with this, but when it remains a constant in the music it hurts the album as a whole badly.
Jada proves herself as one of the better parts of the band though throughout displaying different vocal styles. On the pre-mentioned
Something Inside of Me she takes a more melodic approach, and that works nicely for her.
One introduces the element of fast paced, almost rapping vocals, which can be both hit, or miss, but still is alright. Even though she stands out more than the rest of the band, her voice still can become unsettling. That’s because she seems so angry on the album, but there’s really no reason why she’s like that. I’m not sure, but if she were more melodic then this would have been a better album.
There really isn’t anything disturbingly wrong with Wicked Wisdom’s debut effort. It can seem awkward at times however, and fails to offer anything worthwhile to warrant repeated listens. Musicianship wise, this is average, and repetitive, but sometimes is cool with guitar solos appearing; otherwise it’s boring power-chords. Wicked Wisdom’s debut isn’t exactly solid, but shows promise, that is if the band keeps going as Jada says. It’s tough to give this an overall rating because it feels hit, or miss a lot, but the bad which is lack of variation in the instruments, and the good, Jada’s voice (most of the time), and then sometimes enjoyable music balance out.
Standout Tracks
Bleed All Over Me
You Can’t Handle
Reckoning
Yesterday Don’t Mean
Kripes gives Wicked Wisdom’s self-titled debut a rating of average.
