Friday, May 4, 2012

John TAGLIERI: "Lucky #9"

Rating: 7 /10
Label: Leap Dog Music 2012
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

After one album under the band name of "TAG", our old friend John Taglieri returns as a solo artist with this 6-track EP. If you're familiar with Taglieri's music, you know what to expect - melodic rock comparable to likes of Goo Goo Dolls, Vertical Horizon and Train, but with a hint of the vintage early eighties' AOR sound.

Just like on the TAG album, Taglieri opens the album with its' strongest track, the excellent "Losing Me". Plenty of attitude and melody in an appealing package is how I'd describe this song. "I Never Knew" has a similar "break-up song" theme, yet it's a slower and even darker song, not to mention very good too.

Having exorcized his demons with the previous two tracks, Taglieri comes up with the sentimental "Without You". To be honest, it sounds a bit sugary after the two "angry" tracks. It's still a decent, melodic ballad with the kind of hook that those profilic country songsmiths of Nashville could come up with. The moody "Dying Alive" would have been a more suitable follow-up to the first two tracks though.

The first single "Make Me Believe" is a happy little acoustically-driven mainstream rock track tailormade for radio play. At the time of writing this, it's enjoying success on Amazon's Adult Alternative chart. Congratulations for that, but I must say I prefer the other tracks of the album.

I'm not totally sold on the production, the EP sounds a bit muddy at times, but for an indie album it's not too bad.
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