Tuesday, August 22, 2006

CD Review: Ben Zephyr’s Red Means Go

By Todd Maternowski

In Red Means Go, Ben Zephyr's sophomore recording effort, the band has once again welded together a plethora of musical influences into a crowd-pleasing heavy rock style all of their own. The sheer amount of hard work and planning is readily apparent right away, as the album snakes its way from guitar-driven heavy riff-rock to sentimental ballads and back again, all the while fusing rock, indie, and even some metal and funk into the songs. And on top of the rock are politically-charged lyrics, sung with the Creed-like deep throat of lead singer August.

After their self-titled debut came out in 2005, Ben Zephyr has been the fortunate son of some great national exposure, particularly in the American Idol Underground competition, where the band took the fourth overall rock spot. But as many rock historians can attest, the music graveyard is littered with bands done in by their early success. Fortunately for fans of Ben Zephyr, the band realized this and has made every effort to adapt, evolve and expand, ensuring that Red Means Go will not disappoint.

The album starts with a bang, leading with three high-energy hard rock numbers: the heavy guitar-driven songs "With a Kiss" and "Red Cow" (where the album's title mysteriously originates) follow the opening track's lead with grungy riffs, Creed-y vocals and attention-grabbing lyrics. The bass-heavy formula is tweaked in the following song, the more upbeat "Beetle Therapy", which also emphasizes the vocals and pop-sounding refrains. The change of pace suits the album well, as "Beetle Therapy" is followed by two slower, quieter ballads; the Pearl Jam-inspired "Silence Won't Do", and the strong-and-silent "Missing You", which might be one of the strongest tracks on the entire album.

From that point, the album starts to get a little experimental: from the funk-flavored energetic rock song "She", the band dives into straight-ahead southern rock in "Hey Tom", another strongly-written track which takes its lead from Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" before moving into the band's familiar songwriting territory of loss, friendship and pain. Rounding out the middle of the record is the odd "Rollin' Stone", a fusion of 80s electronica with metal that again showcases the band's ability to graft two presumably separate branches of the music tree together, and if there's one weakness on the album it is that the band does not do this as often as they could.

The remainder of the album reverts back to the indie-flavored grunge-rock that seems to be the band's calling card. Slow, ponderous songs such as "C'est La Vie" and "Remedy" lead perfectly into the closing track, the sad and sentimental "Waiting For You." As far as albums go this is definitely a heavyweight, with its Dream Theater-like emphasis on heady vocals and showoff musicianship. However, it also could be said to suffer the same drawbacks as the aforementioned band, which has been accused of being too clever for its own good - holding back the Hagar, so to speak - especially in the early songs where the guitars are underemphasized on the production in favor of the vocals. This is a relatively minor drawback, though, and one which undoubtedly is not an issue in their live performances. Red Means Go is a skillful second effort that should continue to separate Ben Zephyr from the rest of the alternative-rock pack, full of emotionally-laden lyrics and well-crafted rock.

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