Meet Lorene Drive

Wow, this has been such a long weekend. Not in a bad way—everything has been good…its just been long. But now it is Monday, and despite the yet-to-be-started 10 page paper looming in my future, I’m writing a blog post. So, today I wanted to look at a band, Lorene Drive, from California. They formed in 2002 (according to Wikipedia…yea, you know you’ve made it when you have your own Wikipedia entry.) and have since participated in the Dew Circuit Breakout (didn’t win) and are now participating in the Make Music History Contest for a chance to win an opening slot performing for Motley Crue. As some readers know, I’m investigating each of the finalists in the days leading up to the final competition on November 10th.

So, Lorene drive.

They have a CD out called “Romantic Wealth.” The tracks are as follows:
1. “God Knows I Love You Kid”
2. “Let It Go”
3. “So Easy”
4. “A Kiss Won’t Make This Better”
5. “A Song in the Key of Sex”
6. “Kill Your Lover”
7. “Lip Service”
8. “Change of Occupancy”
9. “Some Kind of Love”
10. “For the Rest of Us”

This CD surprised me. Contrary to whatever I read that had it listed as prog rock, this band actually seems to fall more under a hardcore/punk category. They sound sleazier than they actually are…or at least, they weren’t as sleazy as I’ve come to expect from music, lately. Of course, thats mostly due to my choice of music and not music as a whole. Anyway, I don’t see why there needs to be something in the rules that says you have to have trashy lyrics to play good rock n roll. Speaking of lyrics, I wasn’t a huge fan. They weren’t bad, and lord knows I’ve read some stupider ones by more mainstream artists (I think LD’s worst line is “So tired of going to sleep to the sound of your teeth grinding” which frankly, is kind of bad) but most of them didn’t strike me as being really GREAT lyrics, y’know? there was nothing that seemed particularly inspired about any of them. I don’t know if that really matters, though. Honestly, its more about how the song works together as a whole…how all the parts…the vocals, the guitars, the drums, everything, fit together. And Lorene Drive does a pretty good job of meshing it all together.

I was glad that several the songs didn’t typically fall into the usual verse-chorus-verse-chorus format. yay. That needed to go away. In fact, when you look at  the lyrics of those songs, they read more like a poem that has then been reworked into a song, rather than a song that tries to be poetic. As far as organization, the songs flow smoothly, to the point that once or twice the song changed and I didn’t even realize it. That wins a couple points in my book.

My favorite songs on the disc were “A Kiss Won’t Make this Better” and “Song in the Key of Sex”, though there was no song I really couldn’t listen to. The Ballad, “For the Rest of Us” is pretty good, too. Overall, I think this may be a disc that gets better with time. It seems to have a bit of complexity that I haven’t absorbed fully in first listen or two, but maybe I will appreciate more fully as I listen more and get more familiar with the songs.

Overall, pretty catchy, pretty enjoyable. maybe not quite 5-stars, but I wouldn’t hesitate to pull this CD out again.

Anyway, see for yourself:

What do you think? cool?
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ROCK ON

~ by r0ck0n on November 3, 2008.