Connecticut’s Neybas have been at this for long enough to have a cult following across the northeast, multiple readers’ poll wins, chart placements on the AMA Americana Radio Chart and the Relix/Jambands.com chart, and a track included in the inaugural Essential Western New England Songbook. They’ve shared stages with the Georgia Satellites, Joan Osborne, Rick Derringer, and Felix Cavaliere of the Rascals. Hello, Earth is their sixth studio album, recorded at Massiphonic Studios in Manchester, CT, produced by John Bolduc, and released in March 2026. The cover proudly reads “Certified Human. No AI.” That tells you where they stand.
Labeling this album as a jam band album would be unfair because of the connotations of such a descriptor. Calling it a jam band album would make you think it’s all just funky jams with some vocals thrown together haphazardly the whole time, when in reality it has much more to offer, especially towards the halfway point. Don’t get it twisted, though. There are plenty of fun jams here to satisfy your cravings, and the band wastes no time fulfilling that with the first couple of songs.
“Are You Ready?” starts us off by taking us straight to funky town with some rock elements thrown in tastefully. Namely, some dissonant chords that I’m sure I’ve heard in a Siouxsie and the Banshees song before are used in the intro and part of a recurring motif. It’s a tasteful jam, which is a given since the band has great chemistry and identifies as a jam band; this is a good warm-up.
We escalate to “Live It Up,” a rowdy ska jam that is reminiscent of a Frank Zappa song, just without the cynicism. It’s undeniably fun to listen to for me, though ska might not be up everybody’s alley. It has that 70s quality to it, mostly because of the choice of textures, the organ sounds, and the way the guitars are recorded are a great throwback to that era here.
“Billionaires” is exactly what it sounds like: a tongue-in-cheek alt-rock anthem politely suggesting that the ultra-wealthy take their money and go colonize Mars, so the rest of us who actually appreciate this planet can enjoy it in peace. It’s built to be sung loudly and collectively, and the anthemic structure earns that. There’s something deeply satisfying about a song that manages to be both politically pointed and genuinely fun, and this one threads that needle well.
“Wake the Funk Up” is a tastefully danceable mix between smooth R&B and funk-rock. The clav is doing some heavy lifting here in the background. Musically, the band switches smoothly between tonalities in a masterclass showcase of harmonic storytelling, and in a way, it’s setting up the second half of the album that focuses more on harmonic magic as opposed to the more groove-oriented first half.
But before the band moves on to that second half, they let it rip on “Good Stuff.” It’s one hell of a feel-good blues jam. It’s as danceable as the best blues shuffles you’ve ever heard, and has such a great groove going throughout the whole thing, complete with a tasteful bluesy guitar solo. It’s like the band is getting the jamming part out of their system so that now we’re ready to move on to the second half.
“Strawberry Moon” marks the shift in the album to more laid-back, introspective, gorgeously melodic songs. The Strawberry Moon is the name of the full moon in June and is used in the song to mark when he’ll be going back to his lover. Now, even if the lyrics weren’t as great as they are, this song is worth listening to on repeat just for the beautifully warm bed of harmony created by all the arranged layers of acoustic guitars, but the fact that the lyrics are great really elevates it to a different plane.
“Natural High” is a dreamy celebration of the earth’s beauty. Beautiful harmony and backup vocals support the main vocals as they describe how incredible Mother Nature is and take us on a virtual hike. In fact, that would probably be my recommendation: listen to this song on a walk whilst touching some grass in solitude.
“Mission Control, Are You Receiving?” is, in my mind, an homage to David Bowie’s Space Oddity, whether that was intentional or not, but there are some similar textural choices in the way the ambience conveys the feeling of being in outer space, aside from the obvious connections present in the lyrics and the song’s title. The press kit frames it as a lonely astronaut pining for home, which is the flip side of “Billionaires” sending people off-planet. The interplanetary thread running through this album is one of its more quietly clever structural choices.
“Radio” brings us back down to earth to more of a standard guitar-centric riff-driven rock song, in which the organs join the ensemble in the chorus to elevate the dynamics to achieve that wall of sound effect we all have come to love and expect in a rock song. There is a pleasant surprise twist, which is that there is a slide guitar solo that is reminiscent of Paul Gilbert’s recent works, and it adds quite nicely to the melodic content of the song.
“Give Love” then takes us back even farther into the past, into the era of counter-culture hippie love, to remind us that we have so much to fight for on earth and that we can still start over and save our planet if we lead with love instead of fear and division. You might roll your eyes at such a message, but this message is sorely needed as we constantly get distracted by the powers that be, and they mind-control us to put fear before love. This is The Neybas’ way of fighting against it.
The Neybas then take us back to Jam City with “Your Body and Mine,” a simple song about instant attraction on the dancefloor. It’s among the catchiest tracks on the album because of that genius dry guitar motif. This track follows the “less is more” mantra; the band just holds onto the pocket for dear life without adding too many flashy parts, and it just works better to leave space for the dancing.
“Have Mercy” is a sequel to “Give Love” in my mind. It’s the same message from a slightly different angle. Everyone should help someone in need because, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility, and we can make our world actively less cold if we lead with love towards all God’s creatures, especially our fellow men. In this song, they explicitly ask the lord to help us achieve that more peaceful world.
Finally, the band plays us out with “Road to Mississippi,” a tribute to the Freedom Riders, the civil rights activists who in 1961 boarded interstate buses into the segregated South to challenge the non-enforcement of federal desegregation rulings. It’s a song that re-examines their story and courage from a contemporary context, and the weight of that subject matter brings the album full circle in an unexpected way. A record that opened with an invitation to the dancefloor closes with a reminder of what people were willing to sacrifice for the right to exist freely on this earth. That’s a harder turn to stick than it looks, and The Neybas stick it.
Hello, Earth is a record that earns its own contradictions. It’s a party album with a conscience, a jam record with genuine melodic depth, and a politically aware collection that never forgets to be fun. Six albums in, The Neybas sound like a band that knows exactly what they’re doing.