Review Summary: American musician Dave Chaump leads this band, whose varied musical styles create a decent, yet all-over-the-place album that is just not cohesive.
Dave Chaump, an American musician who has worked on the East Coast and Los Angeles (and has his own jingle house), founded this band in 2004 with a colleague and some acquaintances from the Pennsylvania area; since their founding, they have mainly served as a band who entertain at private parties and weddings, however in 2011, Chaump (who is a music producer as well as being a keyboardist, songwriter, and occasional vocalist), worked in his home recording studio with the band to record an LP, their only one to date.
Chaump is a good musician, and his bandmates provide solid backing. Yet in effect, despite not being the lead vocalist, this record is basically his; he wrote the song "New Day", which appears on here, handled all production, and (does, in fact) provide lead vocals on "New Day".
In 2000, Chaump released a solo LP also titled "New Day" which featured him crafting both word-based and instrumental pieces with the aid of a synthesizer; that was his "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below", a magnum opus which featured him exploring many, many different styles.
Here however, Chaump alternates between drum machine-assisted, nightclub-ready, Lil Wayne-type beats ("Show Our Love"), country-gospel honky tonk songs featuring heavy use of an organ ("Martin, John and Abraham") and classic rock-inspired house party jams ("Party On Down the Line")
Again, the musicianship is admirable, however the record lacks cohesiveness, a bad position to be in when you are an unknown band releasing your debut album.
Nevertheless, Chaump could be like his contemporary Rick Rubin, that is, a mainstay producer in rap, rock, or any other genre; he just needs to create some records with minimal variation and find a genre he is comfortable in. Yet it would serve him well in future to create more "Love Below" type-records, where he does explore, because if there's anything a musician ought stay away from, it's being in one genre for two long.
