Making a hard rock debut in 2020 is a little harder than it has been for previous generations given the influx of diverse new pop subgenres making their way from the shadows of the underground and into the bright lights of the primetime, but that hasn’t stopped the SoCal-stationed Velodrone from breaking off some really incredible riffage certain to make rockers very pleased in their debut, self-titled album. Barely longer than an extended play but not quite as long as a traditional LP, Velodrone’s eponymous rookie release is a record that, on paper, faced a lot of pitfalls before even pressing the play button, but inside of its first three songs in “Love Race,” “Reality” and “Elated,” it quickly becomes clear that we’re not working with a subpar group of players here by any measurement.
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There’s no pretentiousness getting in the way of the music for this crew; truthfully, I think they sacrifice a lot of that for some premium self-exploration in “Voyeur,” “Believe” and “Wysiwyg” that wouldn’t have been possible under artificial circumstances. There are never any opportunities to fake enthusiasm in the narrative because of an underlying continuity and consistency in the theme, which is hard for most non-progressive rock bands to pull off.
We get a great balance of muscularity and otherwise gentle melodicism in songs like “Together,” “Harvest Moon” and “Black Cat,” and while the hard-edged style of the band is usually at the forefront of the creative trajectory here, I don’t think their devoid of familiar pop songwriting skills at all. It’s obvious from the get-go that they’ve got a desire to blend the basic fundamentals of pop/rock with the metallic-tinge of heavy music much as their forerunners in the Seattle grunge movement once did; the difference, of course, is their adherence to millennial conceptualism over the barebones punkishness of yesteryear.
The tracklist here is really spread out as to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time, but there’s never a moment in which it feels like Velodrone are reaching for something that just isn’t there for this generation of rock fans. There could have been more varnish on “Sleepwalking” and “Elated,” but I don’t see much of a purpose considering the ultimate goal set forth here – this band is about substance over sophistication, and that could be what springs them out of the underground and into the arms of a mainstream audience at one point in the near future.
DEEEZER: https://www.deezer.com/us/artist/1682874/radio?autoplay=true
Though thoroughly indebted to the Seattle and Portland-style grunginess of early 90’s American rock culture, Velodrone’s debut album is representative of a band who has a lot to look forward to in their career together, and it would come as a great surprise to me if I were the only critic saying so this November. They throw down some serious potent musicality in this release that I won’t soon forget, and for rock enthusiasts out there feeling like they lost an entire summer, this could be just the shot of adrenaline you need to make it through the next season.
Jodi Marxbury