Once you’ve seen Dispatch play a packed arena 12 times, you really start to think you know everything about them. Whether it’s the average willingness of their fans to let you hit the joint they’re passing around (very high) or the length of time a jam session can last before the audience starts singing “Out Loud” (34 minutes), you don’t think they can surprise you. Then they prove you so fucking wrong by coming out with an album like Zimbabwe.
An album that you sing a capella while you and your buds bake in your pick-up truck. The perfect album to fade on with your remote control when that drunk chick from the party mistakes your room for the bathroom. The least abrasive tune when you’re sitting on your couch hung over, barely nursing that Natty Light, and the big game is on mute. A fucking anthem for the youth of America who need a soundtrack to get them through the heartache of lost love, the stomachache of wing eating contests and the backache of keg stands.
For all of the haters who call Dispatch a jam band, this album proves you so wrong. How many jam bands meld acoustic guitars, African drumming and ukuleles? How many jam bands croon such poignant lyrics that the album can make you cry while you’re doing bicep curls at the gym? If your sweetheart hasn’t burned you a copy of this and scrawled an I love you note in Sharpie across the disc yet, I would recommend first breaking up with him/her and then purchasing it for yourself with the cash you won playing poker last night.
