BAND of the Week

REVIEW

Soak

By Dan Birchall

If you enjoy bands like Live, Alice in Chains, Collective Soul and Our Lady Peace, but find yourself wishing their songs involved a bit more in the way of samples, audio loops and spoken-word rapping, Soak's eponymous 1997 release may be just your cup of tea.


To be sure, the fivesome - vocalist/guitarist Jason Demetri, guitarist Leigh Alexander Mason, bassist John Moyer, percussionist Heath Macintosh, and oddly-named keyboardist Turdlben - aren't the first to generate catchy hard-rock tunes.

Demetri's not the only vocalist out there whose lyrics are actually intelligible. And they're not even the first hard-rock band to make use of extensive sampling, as fans of industrial music or Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime can attest.


But in successfully bringing these elements together, Soak manages to carve out a niche of its own. The resulting sounds are diverse, and the band easily shifts between portions of their style. As the first full-length release from a band that's only been playing together for a few years on the Dallas scene, the album is surprisingly polished.


None of the tracks on this album will have you reaching for the fast forward button and the band really shows its strength and range in the middle four songs. "Shutter Gut (Caroline)" features sample-laden verses driven by a funky bass riff. "Me Compassionate" has a fast-paced, industrial feel. "Street Monkey" is a slow, jazzy instrumental. And the vocal harmonies in the chorus of "Transcendental Drift" are excellent.

Overall, the band delivers music that's technically and artistically solid without being pretentious, with plenty of what listeners want, and a few surprises thrown in.