Keys To Lincoln Road - KLR EP

Keys To Lincoln Road

KLR EP
self-released; 2015

3.3 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

Keys To Lincoln Road is a five-piece band comprised of Martin Alvarez (lead vocals), Julian Bianchetti (lead guitarist), William Breslow (rhythm guitar), Danielle Varela (bass) and Phillip Cruz (drums). Their recent release KLR contains four songs that showcase a talented band that hasn’t quite settled on a style. They fit comfortably under the umbrella of alternative or rock but it gets blurry after that.

The recording quality is about equal to that of what you expect from a demo. Oddly enough some songs sound better than others in terms of aesthetics. Take for example the first song, which contains such a muddy low end you can barely make out a bass drum. This glaring issue gets rectified somewhat with the remaining songs.

“Show Goes On” is a fairly straightforward song that doesn't have many defining characteristics until you get to the two-minute mark where the band ups the BPM and rocks out hard. The lead guitar is pretty sick any way you look at it. It’s too bad it was buried in the mix.

The bass work on “Sailing By” is impressive and so is the lead guitar. On top of that the lyrics are strong and avoid typical clichés. Alvarez sings “The men left to the sea /To find their common enemy / Woah oh row and go / They didn't expect to see / Tides falling over thee.” “Thinking Of You (Na Na Na)” falls somewhere between pop and funk. It’s arguably the catchiest song of the four and I always appreciate a song that has exceptional slap bass.

They close with a ballad entitled “Move On” which displays their propensity for melancholy-like emo. The lyrics are platitudes, yet catchy. The vocalist sings “To move on, move on, move on you move on / I know things don't seem to great with out a crowd / But just keep your head held high /And move oooon / Just move on, just move on, just move on just move on.”

Keys To Lincoln Road is mostly a case of wait and see. I don’t know when they formed, but if I had to guess it wasn’t that long ago. The more you listen to KLR the more it seems to fit into the pop/rock category, which may be indicative of their future work.

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