They may hail from the land of
Pere Ubu and
the Stooges, but
Driver Side Impact's sound is anything but experimental or confrontational. What they sound like is a band that used to be hardcore, and has recently discovered the delights of the hook and the melody, but still isn't quite ready to leave the mosh pit behind. That's a recipe for a good album, and The Very Air We Breathe is most definitely a good album. It's not a great one, however. Following a waste-of-time "Introduction" (why, oh why start your album off with a track that you know four out of five listeners are going to skip over?) they get down to business, and business consists of dense, crunchy but tuneful and ultimately strangely polite guitar rock. Four tracks in, on "Reasons We Sleep," the singer finally starts yelling a bit, and it actually freshens things up a bit. On "Our Lives in Slow Motion" the guitars are so richly layered that the sound is almost orchestral -- then you realize that what's filling in the cracks is, of all things, a keyboard. Having thus left their punk credentials at the door, they then proceed to do a number in 6/8 time ("Life Like Movies").
Driver Side Impact shows lots of promise here, and much of it is being realized already. It's a good bet that the second album will be significantly better than this one. A this one is quite good. ~ Rick Anderson