Any band that bill themselves as an antidote to the brain deadening X-Factor gets my seal of approval but Leika are nevertheless a curious proposition.
Depending on your point of view their sound is either refreshingly varied or confusingly schizophrenic. I tend towards the latter assessment.
On this 12-track debut album they try on various genres for size including 2 Tone, Mod , punk , catchy 60s pop and 70s hard rock. The problem is they don't really settle on one style so end up as a collective jack of all trades, master of none.
The London-based band formed in 2006 as a classic two guitars, bass and drums combo and released one eponymous EP with this line-up. Now they have added Keith Perry on saxophone to give yet more permutations to the band's sound (as if they didn't have enough already!).
When the sax is central to the tracks it sounds fine but this instrument doesn't integrate well with straight pop-rock tracks. It seems clear that many of these songs were conceived when they were a quartet, indeed the tracks Silly Cow; Love, Love, Love; Shrunken Heads and Holding On are all songs from their EP.
|
Lyrically too, they are all over the shop with lines that range from the meaningless to the banal . So we can choose between the pretentious :"now the horizon disappears until the sunset of your years" (Deeper Water) or the just plain dumb : "Mary a little scary.......she's contrary - she's not very nice" (Mary).
Romano Giorgi's vocals are not versatile enough to switch convincingly and he only seems at home in the band's straightforward pop mode
With their personality crisis, it is perhaps not surprising that the album lacks a clear identity. Their obviously enthusiasm would be more infectious if we knew what precisely we should be catching.
Leika at Myspace
|
