Dispatch

All Points Bulletin is supposedly the last will and testament of Massachusetts indie jam rockers Dispatch who successfully toured and sold hundreds of thousands of recordings from their van, over the internet and via small distribution networks. The irony is, though, they spurned major labels throughout their tenure, playing their own hybrid brand of funk, rock and reggae, this double-live plus-DVD set comes out through Universal and the band's back catalog will be reissued through them as well.. Essentially All Points Bulletin is the document of the band's final concerts at Somerville and at the Hatch Shell. Over 110,000 people attended the latter event. Fans will not only want this set, they'll need it. There is no duplication of tracks between the two shows, and virtually every well-known cut is here from "Open Up" and "Ride a Tear," to "Mayday" on the first night, to "Past the Falls," "Bridges," and "Carry You' on the second. The bonus DVD is a wooly collection of documentary and video footage that only the devoted will want to partake in. Come to think of it, Dispatch's faithful are bound to be the only folks willing to pony up for this and tolerate the crowd noise and singalongs that are so necessary to performances and so utterly dreadful on record. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide