On its debut record, Scare Tactics, the Afromotive takes on the choppy, brass-punctuated style of Afrobeat conceived and perfected by Nigerian band leader Fela Kuti. Technically, the gig qualifies as “politically charged" by virtue of Afrobeat’s militaristic pep and chaotic birthplace (Nigeria, circa 1970.) But an Afrobeat band from Asheville, North Carolina can only be so subversive, and it would be misleading to peg them as such.

Instead, the Afromotive’s offering is more pleasurable than political—Ivorian frontman Kevin Mayame adds a sweetness to Fela’s funk with his gentle West African lilt. His voice is nowhere near as husky, and his on-mic personally is far less grandiose and misogynistic than Kuti’s. Mayama can project, however—on-record he has what passes for stage presence, and his lyric sheet sparkles with the poetry of pidgin English.

The band, meanwhile, follows the feverish pace of master drummer Adama Dembele, whose jittery percussive tics give Scare Tactics an almost hallucinogenic quality. The trance is matched by the sober, lonely aesthetic of the two saxophonists, both of whom, like Kuti, seek solace in John Coltrane’s modal territory. The 10-piece band is thick, tight, and jovial, with horns and guitarists who weave and wind around congruent melodies over extended instrumental vamps—Scare Tactics offers plenty of time to zone out, plenty of room to think. But above all, it’s a graceful record, and a credit to the durability of Kuti’s seminal genre.