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Dead Conflict/Adrenaline - Rating:
LA-based Drive A kick-out some fast punk-like ditties on their new one "Loss Of Desire." Not that we ever truly get past the distorted guitar thing, straight ahead snare stuff as on opener "Loss of Desire" through "Everyone's Alone" "Out Of Focus" (the first three here) and even last tune "It's Getting Worse" but Bruno Mascolo has got a good solid strong pair of pipes for what he's screaming about. "The songs on this album are about being frustrated with a lot of things" he says, 'ah youth', I say, still Drive A is a competent group, especially when they step to the side-slightly-of the punk ethos, as they do on "Are You Blind" the best sounding song of the 12 here for me and one of the band's more mature arrangements.
"Can't Sleep It off" is a good stab at Rage Against The Machine territory, a solid tune where the band truly groves. "Smiling With Hate " I liked for it's different (at least from what preceded it) single note guitar attack and "Single File" for the bass opening and offbeat drumming of Cody Root (actually, for me, Root is the band).
"Wake Up" sounds like the rest of the tunes here (the biggest criticism I have really of this CD is that the songs tend to sound a little too much alike) but for some reason "Wake Up" works for me…works a lot actually! With an almost nagging lyric and the band finding space about a minute and a half in and some nice lead work, I was really starting to dig the later part of this CD.
There was more good stuff, as I was happy to hear, with "Coming For You" a nearly poppy (dare I say) number; good guitar work, funny lyric and well sung and a fantastic break that could have been The Monkees on a real heavy day!
I like when a band know enough to write a good short song, get out of its way and make their statement. Drive A does this basically on all the songs on Loss Of Desire. There might be a little bit of 'sameness' here (at least until we get about mid way) but really these guys make a good showing with a in-your-face high end sounding modern punk-like bunch of songs.
