The Flashpot Moments - s/t
Tim Cawley, the musical force behind
this project, is a one man songwriting factory on this release. He has a number
of top flight musicians working with him on The Flashpot Moments’ eleven songs,
but he’s the beating heart of the project and emerges from this release as one
of the most compellingly talented figures in this genre at an indie or
mainstream level. His mastery of the melodic hard rock form is total and it
never comes off as sophomoric or shallow. This is a genre with some standard
tropes, for sure, but Cawley’s songwriting and the gusto pushing his
performances never cheapens these elements and, instead, reinvigorates them
with the sheer force of his personality. This long-simmering project comes off
not because it panders to the listeners. Instead, The Flashpot Moments works
because it is unfailingly honest and doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t.
“Places Unknown” is the anthemic
curtain opener than Cawley undoubtedly hopes it is. He mixes up the musical
approach enough to keep you listening, but getting the audience on its feet is
the clear motivation here and he hits all the right notes to pull that off. The
production brings these songs roaring out of your speakers, but there’s a warm
intimacy in the sonic approach that never overwhelms you. “Strangers Dance” is
a perfect example of that ideal. The pairing of guitars and keyboards on this
gets its great melody off the ground from the start and listeners who move
along with the piece will universally enjoy themselves. The two tracks “’Splode
(The Party Prelude)” and “Abigail, Mispronounced (The Party Aftermath)” tell a
story with varying tempos and textures invariably centered on the same sort of
guitar work filling the remaining nine songs, but there’s much more of an
unified vocal presentation between the two songs than you might find on the
other tracks, or at least different.
The album’s second half embraces more
of a hard rock vibe than the first. “The Learning Curve” and “Hands Up!” are
packed with a lot of explosive guitar and comes blasting out of the speakers
with rambunctious energy that’s impossible to ignore, but there’s an even
harder edge on the second tune that will impress fans of rough and ready
guitar. “Satisfaction Isn’t” looks more back to the melodic end of the
spectrum, but track “Can’t Wait To Find Out” strikes the best balance between
melodic and hard rock on the album despite coming in relatively late. The
unhappiness of the lyric is a late surprise, as well, but the song is never a
drag thanks to the immensely engaging vocal from Cawley. The album closes with
a big number, “The Last Stand”, far longer than anything that’s come before it,
but Cawley handles the extended running time with every bit of the same absence
of self-indulgence and the vivid spirit filling the album’s earlier songs. This
is one of the best debuts in recent memory. The Flashpot Moments doesn’t
content itself with imitating a style; it takes an established musical style,
instead, and claims it as its own, as if they are the first to do it.
9 out of 10 stars
Dale Butcher
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