JoRoDu 2026
The Hummingbird Conspiracy
Melody-pursuing Miamian finds stylistic independence in deceptive simplicity and locates new audience along the way.
Jose Roman Duque was an in-demand drummer ever since he left Venezuela for the Berklee liberties, but the last two decades have seen him explore various genre-bound avenues under different guises based in his name, including JoDu and JoRodu, and “The Hummingbird Conspiracy” is another effort where he, as multi-instrumentalist, breaks free from the followers’ expectations. It’s a concept album inspired, as the composer admits, by a balance of psychological confinement and transcendence, although such heavy matters don’t explicitly inform the music he’s offering here with much more immediacy than usual – setting jazzy sophistication aside yet retaining details which make this record arresting.
As tabla-like grooves pepper the grinding, organ-steamrolled stomp of “Chimera” that opens the platter via Jose’s relentless blues-based riff and gloomy voice, which his four strings spank with a lot of hard-rock gusto, the “Just shut up!” refrain can’t fail to bring a sly smile to the listener’s lips, especially after slithery guitar licks congeal for a slinky, slider-caressed solo. Still, the lyrical “Scavenger” projects a pop-solemnity on a piano-rippled canvas until energetic vocals lift the song’s hymnal veil and reveal its beating heart behind the rage at the demise of genuine music and physical formats before Niko Tsonev’s fingers elevate the angst to celestial heights, just like Kako Guzman’s nimble digits add momentum to the polished, if also secretly angry, “Deja Vù” and a couple more cuts. Duque may go for acoustic intimacy on “Hums Like Wires” that betrays his affection for folk motifs only to erect a prog front this number’s electric charges bounce off of, but the otherwise magnificently arranged “Something’s Ending” reaches for overtly theatrical vibe to serenade his spectral ideal.
Yet while “Vigil In The Nigh Of Nihil” plays around shifts in tempo to land on an extraterrestrial waltz delivered by the cosmic orchestra of JoRoDu’s own making and the shredding of Kabeto Sequini’s fretboard, the epic “Pater Familias” engages in Gregorian chorale and belligerent march to stream desperate spirituality into space, as Jose’s words acquire mellifluous gravity, and the funky “Mirage Of Life” bring optimism to the fold to defy the preceding darkness. Yes, “The Hummingbird Conspiracy” could be more impressive with a professional singer, but then it could lose sincerity in these circumstances and, thus, compromise the message these pieces form.
***1/2
