(RockAndMetal.com) (02/24/05)

By Michael Bennett

SEATTLE, WA - Seattle Soul/Rockers MAKTUB will release their brand new album, "Say What You Mean," on April 12th via Velour Recordings.

"Say What You Mean" is the follow-up to the band's impressive last album, "Khronos," which catapulted the band onto the national scene.

Maktub forged a unique new musical road with "Khronos," which garnered reviews comparing vocalist Reggie Watts to the likes of Soul legend Al Green, and the band's sound to everyone from Sly And The Family Stone to Soundgarden to Led Zeppelin.

On "Say What You Mean," Watts' voice - with its astonishing falsetto and four-octave range - comes across brilliantly, with a versatility that weaves a unique fabric with Rock music.

Maktub's Soul roots remain intact on the new album, but "Say What You Mean" is, at its core, Rock 'N' Roll.

Veteran producer/engineer Bob Power (Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, Meshell Ndegeocello, Citizen Cope, Ozomatli) lived with the band in Seattle for three months while producing and recording "Say What You Mean."

Tour dates in support of the new album will be announced shortly.

As one of the hottest bands to break out of Seattle in more than a decade, Maktub walk a high road of expectations.

To come out on top in that market, to be voted "Best Band" in the Seattle Weekly over hometown heavies like Pearl Jam, to more than hold their own while sharing the stage with headliners ranging from India.Arie, Spearhead and Ben Harper to Earth, Wind & Fire and Coldplay, Maktub have to be that good.

More than that, they've got to be different even as they draw from artists like Prince, Led Zeppelin and Sly Stone - those who also channeled multiple influences into a sound unlike anything previously played in their time.

On "Say What You Mean," Maktub compress the diversity of their first two releases, "Subtle Ways" and "Khronos," into an exhilarating, high-impact style.

Locked into a taut groove behind the vocal skills of Reggie Watts (known throughout the Northwest for his passionate vocals, riveting presence, live onstage sampling and spectacular Afro), the band dig down to their essence, coming up with with a sound that's distinctly original, yet still accessible to a wide range of listeners.

Think of it as Soul sprinkled with psychedelia and a high-octane, Pop/Rock blend. Better yet, don't think think at all until you give "Say What You Mean" a spin.

The thundering drums that kick off 'Promise Me,' the Memphis heat and teasing beat of the title track, the crescendos that whip the choruses of '20 Years into explosions of emotion - whatever you want to call this music, it's impossible to ignore and even harder to forget.

Bottom line, "Say What You Mean" captures a great band at a critical moment thanks to Bob Power, whose work is all about getting to the heart of the artist.

Everything that's come before "Say What You Mean" has been preparation. From this point, Maktub starts making some serious history.

Rewind to 1996.

Seattle is teeming with musicians who fall in and out of bands, each of them collectively wondering how to make their own distinct imprint in a city know for its homegrown musical giants.

Kevin Goldman, just off the bus from Phoenix with bass in hand, meets Davis Martin. They play together the next day, and it feels right.

Davis calls on Reggie Watts, a young singer and former student at the Cornish College Of The Arts.

Born in Germany, Watts grew up in Great Falls, Montana, the son of an African-American Air Force officer and his French wife.

Hoping to study Jazz vocals and see what lies beyond the flat Montana horizon, he moves to Seattle, spends a few weeks at Cornish, drops out, and begins performing with - in his words - "gazillions" of local bands.

After just a few minutes with Martin and Goldman, Watts realizes that this combination is unique. Before the end of the day, the three of them write their first song.

"The balance just felt right," Watts remembers.

"Kevin came from a dub background, while Davis had played a lot of in-the-pocket, trip-hop stuff. And I've always been into pretty much everything."

So they hatch a plan: commit to each other. Cut down on other gigs.

Hold down day jobs to buy time as they develop the band. Don't record or perform until they're ready.

And call the group "Maktub" (pronounced 'mock tube'), an Arabic word that Watts lifts from Paul Coehlo's novel, "The Alchemist."

Translated as "it is written" or "destiny," it has a ring of inevitability that keeps everyone motivated as they settle into the wilderness of rehearsal.

Time goes by, bringing changes.

They finish their first CD, "Subtle Ways," as a quartet, with Alex Veley added on keyboards.

Response is immediate: the album hits number one on KCMU, and later on the Soul and Urban charts at MP3.com, which earns them "Best R&B Album" at the Northwest Music Awards.

They start picking up fans as far away as England, although "Subtle Ways" isn't available for purchase there.

Maktub then expand again, this time recruiting Thaddeus Turner on guitar and Daniel Spils on keyboards. Turner's scorching guitar work and Spils' signature keyboard sounds add precisely the sweetening they all want.

The circle is now complete.

"Daniel is really solid - for lack of a better word, German," Watts explains. "He learns everything perfectly and plays it perfectly."

"He's added cool sounds, a good aesthetic, and great ideas that have influenced us all. He is also a great songwriter and now he's playing guitar too, which gives us even more to work with."

"And Thaddeus adds the chaos that we need within that order: he plays beautiful solos, he's really great at textures and soundscapes, and as a rhythm player he adds that extra juice. He makes us rock hard."

"Thad's guitar work on 'Say What You Mean' is ferocious, and then, well, it's Kevin and Davis, who I like to refer to as a deep-pocket symbiotic rhythm section."

"Khronos," recorded during one two-week stretch, follows in 2001.

As more than 20,000 copies sell, Velour Music Group in New York take notice of the band and, in 2003, release "Khronos" nationally.

Maktub then take to the road for six months at a time, touring obsessively until they blow the trailer spindle on their Chevy Express van - for the third time.

Taking this as an omen, they head back home to write songs and demo most of them as usual, with their minidisc recorder and a single button microphone.

Winter sets in.

Wrapped now in long johns and scarves, they start tracking "Say What You Mean" with Bob Power out from New York to produce.

It's Summer by the time they're done, with the band's basement studio now a hotbox of creative fever.

And from the heat of Seattle's Summer comes "Say What You Mean," the perfect distillation of Maktub, the herald of their breakthrough as a vital new force.

"When I look back," Watts says, "I can say that we came out of the trip-hop scene - Portishead and all that. Now we've come to understand that this is just part of the core of what we do."

"There's still something trippy in what we do, but the songs have become starker. There's always a rock element in what we've done, but on the new album, that's our foundation."

"The next record will be even more rock - more stripped down and straight up."

"I guess this makes it easier to reach more people, he muses, "but I've never thought of that as a conscious goal. I don't worry about my image or feeling pressure for the industry to be this way or that."

"It's more important that I never lose my connection to people on the darker side, who like to experiment with all the parts of their lives, musical or otherwise"

"Really, all we want to do is rock."

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