Studio project L.R.S is, as far as I can understand, a studio vehicle first and foremost, combining the talents of Tommy La Verdi (vocals), Josh Ramos (guitars) and Michael Shotton (drums), with producer Alessandro Del Vecchio lending a helping hand and voice with keyboards and backing vocals respectively. “Down to the Core” is the first album by this constellation, and was released through Italian label Frontiers Music in 2014.
In music there are some key elements that frequently are touched upon. Creativity and originality, are two, and fairly often intertwined and synonymous at that, performance is another, often with musicianship included, while sound, mix and production makes up a third aspect often touched upon when a musical production is described. In this case I’d rate this album at just about 0 on the first of these, but with top rating in the other two departments.
This is an album that revolves around melodic rock, or melodic hard rock if you like, of the kind generally described as AOR. Silky smooth compositions of the kind that appears to be tailor made to be played at just about any classic rock radio near you, with fairly basic lyrics revolving around getting love, getting over love or to be inspired to fight on despite hardships and challenges coming your way. The kind of album that, in the lyrics department, makes Jon Bon Jovi come across as a spectacular poet, so sugary and sweet that the CD should come with a diabetes warning attached.
Musically albums like this balance on the edge of being just too smooth, too lacking in edges and contrasts, generally too pleasant. It’s a fine art to add enough grit and bite into material of this kind yet also retaining the radio friendly principles of the material. In this case I find the project to be more often successful than not in this department, even if it is rather far removed from taking my breath away with it’s cotton candy approach to the art of creating hard rock.
We do get everything we expect though: A strong lead vocalist with a touch of grit to his emotional, melodic delivery, steady ongoing rhythm foundations, toned down guitars adding a smooth and dark texture to the arrangements and careful, silken keyboard textures on top with lighter toned details, all assembled in tight, smooth arrangements with just enough contrast to maintain a nice tension, a generally upbeat and uplifting overall mood, and all of it sugar coated. We get the ballads and the power ballads, the made for radio rockers and the occasional songs with just a bit more bite that gives the album a slight hard rock tinge to boot. Well made songs in general, with strong and compelling chorus sections in particular, are the main saving graces that makes this album a tad more interesting than the more mediocre specimens of this kind, and with excellent musicians adding some touched of elegance and sophistication here and there to flavor the songs with the odd unexpected detail that elevates the total experience. With the majestic power ballad tinged Universal Cry and title track Down to the Core as the clear album highlights as far as I’m concerned.
If you are among those who enjoy the feeling of expect the unexpected, this debut album by L.R.S is one you can safely shy away from. But if sweet, sugary, melodic rock and hard rock of the radio friendly AOR type is material you tend to enjoy, and you have a particular fancy by ventures of that kind where excellent musicians takes pride in adding careful touches of musical excellence into smooth, predictable excursions of the uplifting kind then this is an album you might want to inspect. A nice tasting sweet delight with occasional spicy details of excellency.
My rating: 73/100
