In 2001, coming off of their Psychotic Friends Nuttworx release, the legendary and wildly eclectic jam band Fishbone arrived to lay down tracks for their new record at a free community recording studio. There was only one rule: leave both your shoes and preconceptions at the door. What followed, and is captured here in the musical documentary Critical Times, was a veteran band grappling with how to reincarnate itself on the fly. If it sounds a little bit like this summer’s surprisingly therapeutic Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, the comparison is not completely inappropriate. But what makes this documentary of perhaps passing interest to those not invested in or overly familiar with the band is the fact that Fishbone isn’t struggling to stay “relevant” commercially speaking (they’ve never really had a radio hit), just artistically enthused. To that end, there’s no sense of artificiality hanging over this enterprise. Fishbone — a band that’s already had its share of drama — is merely still looking for ways to make music together.

Los Angeles born and bred, Fishbone in the late 1980s blasted into stardom and life on the road while still in their teens, a heady proposition for any set of youngsters but especially daunting for a group that was primarily a critics’ darling — noteworthy for their instrumental eclecticism and fans’ ardency if not numbers. 1988’s Truth and Soul was probably the apex, both artistically and from a heat standpoint, though 1991’s The Reality of My Surroundings isn’t far behind. Unfortunately, label Columbia was never able to capitalize on their rabid if small following, and the ensuing several years will sound familiar to anyone who’s channel-surfed past Behind the Music on VH-1. Fishbone suffered a disastrous turn of fortune when Columbia’s upper management saw a shakeup, and their new handlers didn’t exactly appreciate the band’s hard-to-peg nature. Group dissent then resulted in the loss of several founding members, including Kendall Jones and John Norwood Fisher.

This tune-centric film centers primarily on the creation and recording of sounds in the studio — which gives one a privileged vantage point to the group’s creativity and vocalist/saxophonist Angelo Moore — but it also delves into the personal lives and politics, plus the diverse and at times clashing musical interests, that inform Fishbone’s voodoo stew of funk, punk, ska, schizoid metal, rap and reggae. It’s this tension, I think, that makes the group such a potent live act. That’s something that’s not captured 100 percent here, but it’s still an interesting behind-the-scenes look at a band of significant influence if not chart sales. Tunes captured in performance include “Frayed F*cking Nerve Ending,” “Last Dayz,” “Critical Times,” “Predawnutt,” “Demon in Here,” “In the Heat of Angrrr,” and “Skank N’ Go Nutts.” B (Movie) B- (Disc)

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