Eleventeen "In the Air" CD
[Sessions]
Here's some pretty god damn solid emo/indie rock (fuck you if you don't like the terminology) from California. The songs are somewhat poppy without going too far, there's a nice dose of subtle experimentation with studio effects and things like that, a definite thread of flat out rock drives things on more than a few occasions, etc. But the bottom line here is that these are good, catchy songs. I don't give a fuck what you want to call it, a good song is a good song. And these cover a lot of ground, from full blown distorted chord progressions to calm clean breaks with soothing volume swells and nice vocal harmonies, etc. I'm sort of reminded of Jimmy Eat World meets a more upbeat Boilermaker with a small dose of the Foo Fighters thrown in or something. Sure, I could do without excessively long, slow, ballad-esque tracks like "Inexpectation" (granted the acoustic guitar and drum programming driven piece "Drive" isn't half bad at all), but "Crestfallen" is just an instant classic. Why is it that almost any song that mentions the radio happens to be an infectious fucking monster of an awesome song!? The production is fucking great. Sign me up, because I have no complaints. The mix is even, the drums are nice and dense, the guitars are perfect, I can hear just enough bass plucking away in there, the vocals are accentuated without sticking out, etc. A damn fine effort in that department, and the songs certainly benefit as a result. The layout's not bad. The only color used is blue, everything else is black and white with metallic silver ink used for the icons of the hot air balloon and most of the text. Sometimes the text can be hard to read because when the metallic ink is printed over lighter textures you have to tilt it in the right light to see it, and it actually creates a cool effect. The lyrics are all personal, and I wouldn't exactly call them atypical. "Doesn't it make you want to stay it feels so damn good, Running in circles all through my veins I just can't figure this out, But I feel alright my body's working my mind is stirring I won't be coming back again." I'm definitely digging this. There aren't necessarily a ton of standout tracks, but it consistently rocks for almost its entire duration, so... I'm not complaining. (7/10)
Running time - 40:28, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: In the Air, Crestfallen, Drive]
Sessions Records - http://www.sessionsrecords.com

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