The music industry is filled with bands who will never make it
\npast the garage, as well as bands who probably will never rise
\nabove being local heroes. It’s not that these bands are bad, or
\nthat they don’t have the talent needed to rise to the next level.
\nIt’s just that some of them don’t differentiate themselves from the
\nrest of the pack, and their own unique work ends up sounding like
\nso many other groups out there.<\/p>\n
I hate declaring a band to be like this, especially a group who
\nis trying to work their way up. So, allow me to apologize to the
\nMike Farley Band from Cleveland, Ohio, for what I’m going to say
\nabout their sophomore independent disc
\nhalfaworldaway<\/i>. You’re not bad by any sense of the word, but
\nI don’t get a sense that I’m hearing anything unique or special in
\nyour music.<\/p>\n
The group – vocalist\/acoustic guitarist Mike Farley, lead
\nguitarist\/backing vocalist Jeff Nagel, bassist\/backing vocalist
\nJeff Beam and drummer\/backing vocalist Joe Rohan – have a pleasant
\nenough mode of operation. Their music sounds like a cross betweeen
\nthe acoustic stylings of Hootie & The Blowfish and the
\nalternative bend of Duncan Sheik. On paper, that’s not a
\nbad-sounding combination, and musically it’s decent enough. Where
\nthe problem comes in is that Farley and crew not only don’t add
\nenough of their own flavor to the mixture, but they can’t keep it
\nsounding interesting to the listener.<\/p>\n
And it’s not that they’re not trying. Tracks like “When It All
\nComes Down,” “She’s Alone Tonight” and “Secrets” all show that the
\nMike Farley Band is committed to making a name for themselves in
\nthe pop-rock vein. But the bulk of the material here just isn’t
\nexciting enough to grab someone’s attention and make them want to
\nsit down for the 45 minutes
\nhalfaworldaway<\/i> demands of them.<\/p>\n
Some tracks, like “Can’t Be Your Man” and “3000 Miles,” just
\nfall short of the target, and have inklings of what could have been
\ndecent tracks. Others, like “Comes With A Conscience” and “Iowa”
\n(what is it with indie bands singing about Iowa these days?) fail
\nto catch the listener’s ear at all.<\/p>\n
For all this, I neither want to declare
\nhalfaworldaway<\/i> a failure nor the Mike Farley Band as
\ndreamers. If anything, I’d prefer to look at this disc as a decent
\nbut flawed effort, and hope that with time logged on the road and
\nin the studio, everything will naturally come together. It just
\nhasn’t happened on this disc, but that doesn’t mean it’s not
\npossible. And there are enough moments on this disc to suggest to
\nme that it all will eventually gel for the Mike Farley Band. Until
\nthen, it’s best to put them back in the oven and let the band
\nsimmer for about another six to twelve months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6548],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36986","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mike-farley-band","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36986"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}