Horns glitter and glide through the bouncy reggae beat at the beginning of "Feel," the opening track on Spirits All Around Us, the fourth offering from Ithaca-based John Brown's Body. And it sounds good -- really good, actually.

Through "Feel" and the next song, "33 RPM," John Brown's Body provides excellent, infectious, laid-back grooves that perfectly embody the best qualities of reggae music. These songs sound like the soundtrack to a party you want to be a part of.

The problem, though, is that it doesn't last.

Clocking in beyond 70 minutes, Spirits All Around Us grows more than just a tad tiresome after about 20 minutes. Each song might sound great on its own, but coming one after another, they all melt together with little-to-no differentiation between them. This listener constantly had to check to see what song was on and was quite often surprised when it was three or four songs further than suspected.

One song that stands out of this mess is the brilliantly-titled instrumental "Instrument." And the only reason it stands out is because there aren't any vocals. Although in all fairness, vocals probably wouldn't save this drab experiment that goes on for nearly eight minutes. Repetitive, long and just plain boring, "Instrument" is a microcosm of what's wrong with Spirits All Around Us.

By the time the album-closing "Time to Move On" comes along, the listener is jarred back into consciousness by the intro, which is essentially stolen from Bob Marley's "So Much Things to Say." Now I know that every reggae artist owes a great debt to Marley's work, but when exactly does this stop being homage and begin to be theft?

No wonder no other reggae artist has achieved the status of Marley. They're too busy ripping him off to write good, original music.

-- Reviewed by Reid Coploff