It's perhaps appropriate that an album released in early 2009 start with a song called "A Love Economy," if only because that might have been one of the few around the world at that time showing a reasonable rate of return.
De Rosa's
Prevention, the Scottish band's second full release, steers an often enjoyable course between the kind of sweeping theatricality that defines much of 21st century indie rock and a close directness that brings that feeling back down to earth. It can be heard on "Nocturne for an Absentee" -- if some of the rumbling undercarriage and guitar almost sounds like it's going to break into a rehearsal tape for a
U2 support act in the late '80s, it then shifts to a smooth, calmer vocal delivery that softly rides the music instead of trying to proclaim over it, matched by calm chimes along the way. The rough melancholia of "Under the Stairs," the album's powerful centerpiece, stands out as the best incarnation of this overall approach. Sometimes the feeling is the slightly disconcerting one of the stadium-ready power ballad -- "Pest" somehow seems all too perfect for a crowd, lighters at the ready, while the overt
Thom Yorke worship in the vocals on "Swell" begs the comparison from the start -- and overall
Prevention does not bring much completely new to a table where bands like
Coldplay and
the Arcade Fire have long since established their particular styles. Still,
De Rosa's variation has its attractive-sounding place. ~ Ned Raggett