De La Cruz
Street Level

Australian band De La Cruz unleashed their debut album not too long ago, it is called Street Level and has a rather sleazy looking album cover. The premise of this band was to get going with an eighties styled hard rock band, I don’t know much about creating a band and such but to be really looking to make a certain styled music and not going by whatever comes out when writing. One has to wonder as Frontiers also has a habit of releasing albums that conforms to genres of old many of which are quite boring, others are alright but not very exciting and a precious few are great. So, what about this album? It has a dozen tracks plays for three quarters of an hour and it conforms to a style of the eighties, at least from the outside.

Also from a musical sense it is sleazy, dirty hard rocking music with catchy choruses. Fairly melodic, if you have ever been listening to the hair guys of the eighties you will know what to expect from this album. Melodic rock with catchiness, a little bit dirty with a singer who sounds a bit rebellious or something. The production is as expected for the genre, alright, modern and powerful but nothing really new or exciting, or surprises. Sleaze rock with no surprises can be a description of this album, I would say that these guys are living in the past and the guess is that their music is aimed at people who are living in the past as well. There are many of those.

I am not living in the past so I remain less than overly impressed by this album, sure the song are good with their high energy and raw sound but I have heard it all before. The album opens with the title track which is quite impressive, catchy and sets up a good tone for the rest of the album but what follows are not as impressive. The track Dreaming is another one I really like but then it ends there and the rest of the tracks feels rather average and the album as whole becomes a rather average one. Sure it is good but I’ve heard it all before so many times that it didn’t even feel new the first time I heard it, too bad for me but I guess it will be brilliant for all of you who are living in the past.

I think that if you will like this album will be a matter of your view on music, if you like your new album to feel fresh and new when you hear them the first time I doubt that you will be overly impressed by this album. If you are relishing the times past and years lost and think everything was better in the past than in the present, then you will probably adore this album. I am sure it wasn’t recorded in 1987? You can never be fully sure but Frontiers says it wasn’t and the album sounds a bit richer in sound than the albums of the same style that was released then did. So, what it all comes down to in the end with this album is wether or not you think that everything was better 25 years ago. If you do, then by all means this should please you a lot.

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