I don’t want to imply the system works — it’s pretty damn clear it doesn’t — but I will say that my first listen to an indie disc almost always provides some clue as to why the band or artist isn’t signed to a major and plastered across the airwaves. Maybe they’re a little raw, or esoteric, or self-conscious, or their sound feels a little off the mark they appear to have been aiming for.<\/p>\n
And then there’s the inevitable exception. One listen to this disc had me wondering just exactly why the hell Seismic isn’t on the “add” list of every alt-rock station with half a brain in the country. Listening to this album went like this for me: “Okay, that’s a single. And that’s a single. And that one. And\u2026 etc.”<\/p>\n
Man From Space<\/i> is a deeply satisfying blast of propulsive guitar rock. Eric Braverman (drums), Darren Buck (lead vocals), Ben Cannon (bass) and Frank Cappella (guitars\/vocals) combine appealing energy and enthusiasm with a sometimes-surprising inventive streak, bringing to mind bands like Jimmy Eat World and Semisonic.<\/p>\n
Man From Space<\/i> launches with “Last Act Of A Friend” (whose crashing opening chords and inspired mid-song breakdown and reprise are topped off by some brilliant Stevie Ray Vaughan-ish wah-wah’d-out riffing), and builds steadily to the throbbing, ringing, thoroughly memorable “Under A Kiss,” a no-brainer first single if ever I heard one. Guitarist Cappella — who is the band’s primary songwriter, Pete Townshend-style — has tremendous chops and a steady stream of fresh melodic ideas.<\/p>\n
The Townshend comparison becomes even clearer when you run across tracks like “Queen of The Rodeo,” with its distinctly Who-like amped-up-boogie sound (hell, in places it’s practically a rewrite of “Going Mobile”), and “Roses Never Die,” whose rhythmic acoustic opening has a “Magic Bus” feel. Of course, “Roses” then does a steady build into a gorgeous, yearning chorus (“I want to live forever”) and lyrical solo whose cinematic feel begs for a soundtrack placement.<\/p>\n
On heavier tracks like “Spy Song (Get What You Need),” Seismic adds a Pearl Jam-like crunch and fury that effectively balances more obvious guitar-pop tracks like “Top Of The World.” Even the latter, though, has some great moments as Cappella and company sell the song with energy, dynamics and the kind of out-of-fashion optimism that’s totally missing from current guitar bands like Nickelback and 3 Doors Down.<\/p>\n
Vocalist Buck deserves a mention here. The story goes that Braverman and Cappella found him singing in an off-Broadway show and were wowed. It’s not hard to see why. His vocals soar and growl on the big numbers and sail gently on the softer ones, and his phrasing is right on. The Cannon-Braverman rhythm section is superb throughout as well, adapting like veterans to the shifting arrangements and demands of each track and adding nice fills where the music calls for them.<\/p>\n
The ultimate compliment for Seismic, though, comes from my fourteen-year-old daughter. Moody, sarcastic, and anything but easily impressed, her response after I popped Man From Space<\/i> into the CD player on the ride to school was (a) “Who are these guys?” (b) “Where are the lyrics?” and (c) “They’re really good!” Are you listening, Mr. A&R Man?<\/p>\n
There is no detectable reason why this album and band can’t be Matchbox Twenty-huge. The melodic sense is there, the energy and creativity is there, and the sound is big yet catchy, radio-friendly yet uncompromised. If there’s a shred of common sense left out there in corporate-radio-land, you’ll be hearing these guys on your local alt-rock station before the summer’s out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7003],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37921","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-seismic","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37921","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37921"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37921"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}