When I heard I’d be writing a blurb about The Seed, a reggae band from Roanoke, I was not optimistic. I grew up in the ‘Noke and back then there was very little going on in that town, musically. There was some thrash punk and some third-wave ska (ala local faves Swank) at the old Iroqouis Club and then there was the festival crowd. If there’s one thing Roanoke likes, it’s a festival with shitty music and girls in high-waisted jeans and poofy hair doing the booty dance while spilling their plastic cups of beer and burning their neighbors with their cigarettes.

Like I said, I wasn’t optimistic. I turned off my playlist and fired up The Seed MySpace page to see just how bad it was going to be. As Frontin’, the third track off their newly-released, self-titled album, loaded up, my scepticism was instantly erased. I was greeted with a smooth guitar hook and legitimately soulful vocals that reminded me more of a Sade song than a Marley rip-off. For a group of 20-somethings, it was a surprisingly mature sound with no trace of that hippy jam-band wankery that so often turns me off from bands like this.

I usually give MySpace music 30 seconds to impress me. I listened to all five tracks from The Seed and then went to their main site to find some more. It’s no wonder singer Gabe “The Ambassador” Lewis won best male vocalist in the 2007 Roanoke Times’ annual music poll and drummer/guitarist Brent Hoskins was voted best musician in City Magazine’s 2008 poll.

In July, Lewis and Hoskins, along with bassist Jay DeCicco, moved the band to Washington, D.C to be around more musicians, but they still play regularly in Richmond.
Their Web site proclaims The Seed’s sound is one even haters have to listen to, and their music had this hater listening for the rest of the afternoon. Go check them out this Saturday at the Cary Street Cafe at 10 p.m. 

Web | http://www.theseedsound.com