Album Review: "Free Flow Sessions" by Stick Figure

STICK FIGURE “Free Flow Sessions” (Ruffwood Records)

    Stick Figure’s latest release is a dub-style reggae album showcasing pristine production of multi-instrumental riddims. The 12 tracks clock in at just 33 minutes, and only a few feature founder and front man Scott Woodruff’s smooth-rapping vocal style–a key component of the band’s overall laidback vibe and burgeoning fanbase.     Sleigh bells set the backbeat on “Walking In My Shoes” with Woodruff repeating “You don’t know how it feels / to be walking in my shoes” before a rapid-fire verse delivery and soulful guitar solo. “Welcome to My World” also drops in snippets of Woodruff’s vocals, making it another album highlight. Other tracks without vocals, although groovy,  sound more like reggae muzak compared to Stick Fig’s spectacular seven album back catalog. For instance, “Rude Boy Riddim,” “Forever” and “Sticky Situation,” featuring a bright horn section, never get beyond a reggae-light feel. “Dub Style Blues” also layers horns over the grooves, but would best be used as the opening track played over the PA before the curtain rises on the band’s set.      The most satisfying track is “This Is What We Came Here For.” With its slinky rhythm and full verse-chorus-verse composition, it sounds like a song that could appear on any past non dub-style albums and would play great live.

6/10

-Jason Scales

This review was originally published in the December 2025 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine. Click here and navigate to page 17 to see it there.

Album Review: "Blackbraid III" by Blackbraid

 

BLACKBRAID “Blackbraid III” Wolf Mountain Productions

    The most transcendent moment on the third album by indigenous black metal band Blackbraid happens during the transition from the song “The Earth Is Weeping” to “God of Black Blood.” “The Earth is Weeping” is a haunting instrumental featuring a repetitive acoustic chord progression highlighted by loon vocalizations. The call of the loons, one of the most revered northwoods birds, combined with the guitar strumming is hypnotic–only to be broken by the guttural shrieks that start the crushing momentum of “God of Black Blood”--one of the best compositions on the album.      Like earlier tracks on the album “Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of my Death” and “The Dying Breath of a Sacred Stag,” “God of Black Blood” displays the galloping blast beats and guitar riffage of past Blackbraid album offerings. “Blackbraid III” may have more acoustic, atmospheric tracks than other albums by the artist, but there’s more than enough heaviness to balance it out. “Tears of the Dawn” is black metal epic that rumbles along for over nine minutes. But the most sublime moments happen when tracks veer into folk black metal territory: “God of Black Blood” seamlessly weaves a flute solo into the guitar-breakdown groove, perhaps the second best moment on the album. 

8/10

–Jason Scales

This review ran in the November 2025 print issue of Illinois Entertainer. Click here and flip to page 37 for that version.