Review Summary: Some great, strong but yet melodic hard rock that is done very professionally.
Stereomud:
Erik Rogers - Vocals
Corey Lowery - Bass, Vocals
Joey Zampella - Guitar
John Fattoruso - Guitar
Dan Richardson - Drums
Stereomud was a hard rock band from New York, USA. They were only active in the years 2001-2003. In that time they released two studio album, Perfect Self being their debut. The other one is called Every Given Moment. Right now Stereomud are preparing for a reunion tour that kicks off on march 6, 2009. There are even rumors that Steromud is coming back together for good to record a third studio album.
Perfect Self is quite an interesting hard rock album. It has a heavy sound on it and has good melodic vocals. The guitars usually play very low-tuned riffs, mainly guided by the bass which unusually in turn seems to be following the vocals. So it seems that the most important thing on this album are the vocals which guide all the other instruments. The circle seems to be like this: vocals>bass>guitars. The drums are the ones that don't seem to be guided by anything and play it's part independently. This circle really is working well because this album is professionally one of the best hard rock albums ever made. The lead singer, Erik Rogers, has a really strong, uptight voice which really suits this kind of music very well. While the bass is creating the atmosphere, the intense vocals create the mood and lay the base for the electric guitars, to start working on and developing their sound from there. And all this is backed up by some fierce and accurate drumming, which isn`t protuberant, but still is heard sufficiently, making the sound quality very high. It's actually very nice to see that you can get this kind of quality with only the 4 standard instruments: 2 electic guitars, bass guitar and drums, which collaborate with the vocals well. And i'm very happy that this vocal-guided hard rock is done in such a good way, because sometimes when a band has a great vocalist, then the singer eats the rest of the band (for example Chad Kroeger who has a good rock voice and he really shadows the rest of the band, or for a better example, Queen who is nothing without Freddie Mercury). But not Stereomud, they managed to balance the weight of the band among all the members and by doing that, they were capable of making this excellent album.
And after all this eulogy, why only a 4, not higher? Well this album is not without flaws. One thing that is seriously chevy is that this album is stuffed with some 5-35 second filler tracks which are basically nothing more, than a disturbing guitar or electronic effects. It's ok if you have like one, or even two of these effects on an album, but my god, this album has got 11 of those. I mean, with all these great tracks, who wants to put something like this on their album. Thankfully this is the biggest flaw of the album. The second reason, why this doesn't deserve a five in my eyes, is that Stereomud doesn't do anything new or inventive that I haven't heard before in the hard rock world. Like I said before, the sound quality is great and the musical execution is extremely professional, but there isn't anything new about the riffs , or the drumming. It's great, but nothing inventional. Sure the riffs are very aggressive for hard rock and the drumming level is greatly above the usual hard rock drumming, but it`s nothing new. Simply put, Stereomud doesn't progress the genre.
So all in all this album is a must have for every hard rock fan, and infact it's worth checking out by anyone who likes rock and/or metal music. Great drumming, cool basslines, exciting guitar riffs, and some really interesting bridge parts, which are all in perfect harmony with the great vocal performance of Erik Rogers. Melodic, yet hard hitting rock music to slam
your mp3 player.
Recommended Tracks:
Pain
Leave (Back Up)
Steppin Away
Sunlight
Don't Be Afraid
