Here\u2019s something I never thought I\u2019d be writing about. Twelve and a half years after their last disc and some twenty years removed from their biggest hit, \u201cLittle Black Backpack,\u201d California rockers Stroke 9 has returned from seeming oblivion with a new album. Done entirely on their own with help from longtime Tom Petty drummer, Steve Ferrone, the band is essentially starting over on this release. Not that the band ever disappeared completely; they\u2019ve been putting out cover songs online for the last two years or so, but it is still surprising to hear from them again. <\/p>\n
The opening title track is lightweight breezy soft rock that\u2019s a change of pace for what we remember of Stroke 9 in the past. It isn\u2019t terrible, but it isn\u2019t that great either. \u201cBig Fan\u201d is a crap song, similar to something The Verve Pipe could have better pulled off in 1996. In a way, this reminds me of Sugar Ray\u2019s comeback album from 2019 where they went in a deliberately cheesy yacht rock sound that stripped away any remaining good feeling about their work. This feels the same. Stroke 9 has gone softer, and as a result, they\u2019re less interesting now than they would have been if they had tried this a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cRiptide\u201d is a song that just sounds bad; it\u2019s like a strange New Wave track with out of place keyboards and a vibe that\u2019s unlike anything I\u2019ve heard from these guys before. If a band like this has been gone for as long as they have, introducing a new sound isn\u2019t the wisest move. It certainly doesn\u2019t seem to work on this record. Songs like \u201cRiptide\u201d and the oddly titled \u201cNeil Young\u201d lack a certain spark that would have highlighted earlier records and made the band sound more alert and interested in what they\u2019re doing. Instead, we have an album full of head scratchers that certainly leave the audience wanting more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Plan\u201d is about the only song that works and actually sounds well and is representative of the band\u2019s now apparently former sound. The closing ballad \u201cThrough the Smoke\u201d is a pretty little number as well that took me by surprise. But two songs out of nearly a dozen doesn\u2019t do enough to make up for the shortcomings that are all over this disc. While this was quite the surprise to see that Stroke 9 had a new album coming out, ultimately, the results are less than stellar and leave all but the diehards expecting more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":33976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7600],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-45804","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stroke-9","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45804","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\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45804"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45804"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}