Orange Grove

Orange Grove is the radiant brainchild of lead singer Michael Maidwell and guitarist and close friend Jacob Streefkerk. After leaving their Caribbean homes in St. Maarten to pursue an education in the Netherlands, the two decided to form a band after years of toiling at business school. The mellow grooves and happy vibes that soulful reggae tends to bring made the number crunching and deadpan feeling at school tolerable and it translates directly into their music. Instead of just providing and radiating stress relief to their audience like other reggae bands, you can hear their own stresses being relieved into the music, which gives Orange Grove's brand of reggae a little more rock and roll aggression and maturity in their message.

Listen to Orange Grove on BandSoup

This five man reggae-rock outfit are currently three full length albums in and claim to just be hitting the peak of their careers. Lead singer Michael Maidwell is very enthusiastic and somewhat mysterious about what they have in store in the near future: "We are about to drop something big and it’s very heavy. It will make a very loud thumping noise and even the people who are not paying attention will hear it. It will wake people up out of their sleep..even the very deep sleepers...[but] if I told you what it is you might never feel it for what it really is."



The band recently released a brand new pop-reggae influenced track, Some Things Last Forever, which is available now on iTunes and their Bandcamp page. This new record differs a bit from the other songs shared on the main site. Compared to the heavier, rock laced Feel that Fire and modern reggae influenced You Decide It, it would seem that the band is heading towards another direction in their music; however, after listening to more of their discography, I know it's just Orange Grove doing what they have done for close to a decade now-- keeping their fans guessing while showing off their dexterity and talent that can handle almost any style of reggae and rock available.

Much like Rebelution and SOJA in the US, Orange Grove has the means to break through to a wider audience. Their endless influences, ingenuity, and knack for writing catchy tunes in various styles give them an accessibility that is hard to come by in this genre. If Pepper and Rebelution were a seed, they would grow into something much like Orange Grove, but this band is already bearing the fruit of something even better.

Orange Grove's Main Site

Orange Grove on Facebook