Darren McLeod
11/20/05, 05:38 PM
What do you do when your band is on the brink of making it big? Apparently, you quit. That's what Steven Bradford did, but you won't see him regretting the decision. After a tour with Underoath and a mention in Alternative Press magazine, Bradford left Waiting for Autumn and formed Get Back Loretta.
Going in a completely different musical direction than his previous band, Get Back Loretta is a classy piano-rock ensemble, but not in the way you're thinking. They are not piano rock in the sense that Something Corporate or Waking Ashland are, but rather they play a much more traditional style influenced more by bands like The Beatles than by Jimmy Eat World. You can hear the 1960s and 1970s resonating through some of these songs, with classical guitar riffs becoming apparent in songs such as the catchy number "Caught in the Middle," or in the bluesy "Nobody Knows."
It is this vintage influence that makes Get Back Loretta so refreshing. It has allowed them to add more soul and jazz to their music, letting it exceed expectations one would normally have for piano rock. Bradford's vocals soar powerfully on tracks like the opener, "Ninety Five," and he hits a delicate falsetto over beautiful instrumentation on the wonderful "As I Lay" (which, by the way, has a tune eerily similar to the first half of Gatsby's American Dream's "A Manifesto of Tangible Wealth"). The album closes with the charming acoustic folk ballad "Pretty Song," which shows that even stripped of the backup support found on other songs, the songwriting is impeccable.
This EP is more than impressive. It manages to transcend any expectations, and the variety in music held within these six songs is astounding. This is an EP everyone should hear, and will find a nice place on my end-of-year list.
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Band Website: http://www.getbackloretta.com
Band MP3s: http://www.myspace.com/getbackloretta
Going in a completely different musical direction than his previous band, Get Back Loretta is a classy piano-rock ensemble, but not in the way you're thinking. They are not piano rock in the sense that Something Corporate or Waking Ashland are, but rather they play a much more traditional style influenced more by bands like The Beatles than by Jimmy Eat World. You can hear the 1960s and 1970s resonating through some of these songs, with classical guitar riffs becoming apparent in songs such as the catchy number "Caught in the Middle," or in the bluesy "Nobody Knows."
It is this vintage influence that makes Get Back Loretta so refreshing. It has allowed them to add more soul and jazz to their music, letting it exceed expectations one would normally have for piano rock. Bradford's vocals soar powerfully on tracks like the opener, "Ninety Five," and he hits a delicate falsetto over beautiful instrumentation on the wonderful "As I Lay" (which, by the way, has a tune eerily similar to the first half of Gatsby's American Dream's "A Manifesto of Tangible Wealth"). The album closes with the charming acoustic folk ballad "Pretty Song," which shows that even stripped of the backup support found on other songs, the songwriting is impeccable.
This EP is more than impressive. It manages to transcend any expectations, and the variety in music held within these six songs is astounding. This is an EP everyone should hear, and will find a nice place on my end-of-year list.
--
Band Website: http://www.getbackloretta.com
Band MP3s: http://www.myspace.com/getbackloretta