There are few things in this world that are better than mature, quality rock
music. And there hasn't been an album as good as Soul Searching Sun, a
very mature piece of work, in a long, long time.
Keith Caputo, this venerable outfit's singer, sounds a little more relaxed than
on River Runs Red, and his tone is lower and more serious. It works perfectly.
On songs like "Weeds" and "Hope", his tone is the glue that holds everything
together, steady and confident. At other times, like on "Tangerine" and "None",
he dances high above the rest of the band, seemingly plucking emotions out of
the air.
The music is solid, thick, at times funky, and always well-written; it moves
from fast and angry punk to restrained half-ballad to the unique sound of songs
like "Angry Tree" and "Hemophiliac In Me", both of which are incredibly melodic
and a great deal of fun to listen to. If ever there was a band that deserved
radio airplay, it is Life of Agony.
The limited edition of the CD includes a few bonus tracks, one of which is an
"unplugged" version of the brilliant "Weeds." Life of Agony reminds us here what
the whole point of unplugged music was: it's more than playing songs on acoustic
instruments without making them sound any different. (Take Alice in Chains, for
instance, who consistently take songs that were written for electric instruments
and play them acoustic as-is, and the results are always dreadful.) This "Weeds"
is an entirely different song, filled with a mood far-removed from the punkish
original.
Life of Agony remains the perfect band for intelligent people who want to like
bands like STP and their contemporaries, but just can't dumb themselves down
quite that much; and Soul Searching Sun is a perfect snapshot of this
widely talented and inventive group of fellows.
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