Brits Back Fat Freddy

Incessant European touring appear to have paid off for Wellington band Fat Freddy’s Drop. The dub/reggae/roots collective won worldwide album of the year at the annual BBC Radio 1 Gilles Peterson Worldwide Music Awards for their 2005 release Based on a True Story (which also swept October’s 2005 NZ Music Awards). After attending the Hammersmith Palais show, Guardian music critic Robin Denselow likens Dallas Tamaira’s “easy-going soulful vocals” to Bill Withers and praises the band’s “intriguing and unlikely” Pacific update on the Jamaican sound.