Eve To Adam's "Locked And Loaded" Reviewed
Smell The Glove
Leave it to local band Eve To Adam to release the straight up no chaser rock and roll album of the year. Locked And Loaded is a blast of energy from one end to another that beats out so many of its contemporaries by an ability to, from time to time, nail the song completely.
According to their website, Eve To Adam is “Taki Sassaris (lead vocals), Alex Sassaris (drums), Gaurav Bali (lead guitar). Luis Espaillat has stepped in as the touring bassist. Adam Latiff (Puddle of Mudd) is the newest member, replacing Virus (Dope, Device) as touring rhythm guitarist. Puddle Of Mudd? I have no great love for corporate rock, the mainstreaming of rock and roll has left me cold for years now, but Puddle Of Mudd would definitely be my hard rock band of choice and finding their bassist here seems to cement two impressions.
1. Eve To Adam are mainstream modern rock and
2. They are good at it.
Not for E2A the hip hop inflected children of Limp Biscuit, the band put their head down over 11 songs of crunch, hard rocker and don’t let up for an instance. This is music for teenage boys in middle America to let loose to. From the Playstation 3 ready opening title track with its dire warning “You should have realized, you brought a knife to a gun fight” through the first non-pc single and video “Straitjacket Supermodel” all the way through to the penultimate song on the album power ballad “Shut Out The World” through to a final guitar power riffarama “Forgive”, E2A do exactly what they are meant to and unerringly.
Taki has a great voice for this stuff, edgy and unknowable, all attack and tenderness and guitarist Gaurav Bali is exactly what you need to pull off mainstream rock and roll in 2013, he is all tone and riff, aand by the screaming last song the band have morphed into emo hard rock hardcore weirdos of the first aorder.
Rarely does album do what it sets out to with the pinpoint concentration, Locked And Loaded is a triumph in a genre that bores me sick. If I liked the genre this would be an album of the year, as it is it is an impressive modern rock album for the masses and for the middle ground.
Grade: B
