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Drift: Driftsongs
The American band Drift hail from New Jersey and Driftsongs is their first album to date. This is a four piece consisting of Jack Blair (lead vocals, keyboards, guitars), Steve Gio (bass guitar, backing vocals), Evan Jacobson (drums, backing vocals) and Dave Scags (electric and 12 string guitars, backing vocals). Driftsongs consists of only six songs and is relatively short by today's standards but is a nice introduction for the band. According to the band their influences include King Crimson, Genesis, Yes, VDGG and Porcupine Tree. Drift definitely has a classic prog sound and at times recall bits and pieces of the aforementioned bands. Keyboards often dominate the soundscape adding atmospheric textures and melodic lead lines. The band shows plenty of promise however I have one complaint and that is the vocals of Blair. At times his voice comes across as slightly monotone. His vocals are not horrible by any stretch of the imagination but they are not as powerful as they could be. That being said, this was still an enjoyable album.
The CD starts with the instrumental prog of "La Vaca Baila" which is quite dramatic sounding featuring plenty of keyboards. The tone gets darker with the ominous "Ned Untrumpted" beginning with a gloomy synth melody giving off a spacey vibe until the song segues into nice acoustic guitar half way in before returning to more spacey synths which makes for an excellent ending. The album's heaviest song is the energetic "Faker" taking a more angular approach with an element of King Crimson and a driving bass line propelling it along. This is the edgiest song here and perhaps the most interesting. "The Audition Room" contains some good proggy pop with jangly rhythms, solid bass and vocals reminding me of The Psychedelic Furs before breaking out into more progressive territory with keyboards, bass and drums setting the groove and ending with a repeated guitar melody that really strikes a chord. The deliciously melodic "Overlook" has surely come from The Kink's school of no frills punky hard rock. One could argue that it feels out of place but I like the extra variety this song offers. The album ends with "A Goodbye Greeting", another prog injected slice of melodic pop.
This is a good debut album and Drift show a lot of promise. If you like your progressive music flavoured with punk, pop and hard rock this band is one you should be on the lookout for. Hopefully the vocals will improve on their next release.
(originally reviewed for www.progressiveears.com)
Track Listing:
1. La Vaca Baila (3:38)
2. Ned Untrumpted (8:46)
3. Faker (6:51)
4. The Audition Room (11:56)
5. Overlook (6:22)
6. A Goodbye Greeting (5:23)
Added: January 19th 2010 Reviewer: Jon Neudorf Score: Related Link: Band's MySpace Page Hits: 2013 Language: english
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