Best Rock Band
The Heavy Pets
Theheavypets.com
With a reportedly successful tour that went up the East Coast and into parts of the Midwest and the release of an audacious double-album debut, South Florida’s best jam band has had a great year. The CD, fittingly titled "Whale," features 21 tracks that cover everything from jam-heavy rock to reggae to funk and many points in between. As is typical for bands of this type, the monstrous album doesn’t do justice to this group’s live show, which incorporates a level of musicianship rarely seen in a local band. At this point, guitarist Jeff Lloyd must be sick to death of the comparisons to Phish’s guitar whiz Trey Anastasio, and the rest of the band is hardly window dressing for the guitar parts. Lloyd swears his blueberry pancakes are even better than his musical chops, but we cannot personally attest to this claim. (Hint, hint. C’mon, Lloyd, we’re hungry.) As we now live in not just a Deadless and Phishless world but also one bereft of The String Cheese Incident, The Heavy Pets are South Florida’s best contender in the race to the top of the jam pile.
