Luca Brasi, By a Thread – album review
With the release of their new album, By A Thread, Luca Brasi sound like The Hard Ons’ optimistic nephew. Melodic punk bands like these guys have been a-dime-a-dozen for the last decade-or-so, with only a few cutting through the grain, but Luca Brasi may have what it takes to do so.
The group’s vocalist Tyler Richardson’s unashamed Australian accent combined with enthusiastically encouraging lyrics is a feature of the music that will definitely endear the band to established fans of the pop/melodic punk world. ‘Let the sky hear your rants, don’t stop till it takes notice’ from One Set of Rules – interesting stuff to muse over while you drive home to the Central Coast, Launceston or another one of the humbler Australian cities.
This band certainly has some clever guitar work as well. There are a few songs where the guitars float alongside the vocals, you can imagine the melodies holding hands but not necessarily stepping in sync, and I think these are the band’s strongest songs, or at least their most personalised. In Here’s Looking at You Kid the bass and drums seem to change consistently through out the different sections of the song, while maintaining the space required for the guitars and vocals to get in your head. There is repetition but it is presented in a way that seems new each cycle. The guitar solo at the end of Echoes leads into an arpeggio that sounds pretty cool alongside Tyler’s voice as well.
All this aside, Luca Brasi are a band that don’t do much to try and transcend the genre, which may isolate them from a number of audiences, but they’re good at what they do, so who cares anyway? By A Thread is quite a solid melodic punk album with all the right sounds, moves and vibes required to turn the heads of their target audience. Having said that I would like to see Luca Brasi experiment in ways they could further set themselves apart from their contemporaries, but this a challenge some bands are not interested in approaching and time will tell whether or not it effects their longevity.
Luca Brasi, By a Thread is out now on Poison City Records.
Review by James Booker.
