Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: August 7, 2020
Production: Landfall
Album length: 49.11 min
Genre: Melodic Rock
Rating: 7.5/10
Landfall have dropped their studio debut, “The Turning Point”. They’re a Brazilian melodic rock band that spent years operating as W.I.L.D., then renamed themselves Landfall when singer Gui Oliver came on board. The members have quite a bit of mileage behind them, including official releases and plenty of hard-won experience. Among other things, they’ve shared stages as the opening act for Glenn Hughes and Mike Vescera. Oliver previously worked with Auras, and for this debut Landfall also built on sketches of material he wrote back in his Auras days that never got used.
“The Turning Point” is a quality record at its core, and it lives up to the “studio debut” label. It’s a convincing piece of work. Skim the track titles and the album plays like a concept story about a journey through a city. A drive around town in a car. Yep. A bit childish, sure, but that’s how it goes. Presumably the Brazilian city of Curitiba, where Landfall are from.
Oliver’s voice belongs with those talented vocalists who can reach for the high, even the highest, notes in melodic rock. Now and then he does sound like Journey’s famous frontman Steve Perry, but plenty of singers today do, including the far more explosive Rob Moratti and Kevin Chalfant, so it’s no surprise. What matters is that Oliver is developing his own vocal personality. His voice is hugely important on this record, since it’s what holds everything together. That’s why in melodic rock you need, next to the singer, at the very least a very good guitarist. Here, a songwriter too. But also a technically refined craftsman of guitar solos, which colorfully decorate the middle-eight passages. “The Turning Point” delivers on that front as well. What you’d want on an album like this is a bit more energy from the drums, which sound very one-dimensional, stick cautiously to rhythmic monotony, and show not a shred of color or imagination at the spots where there’s room for it. In the transitions, that is. Sadly, the snare sometimes sounds almost robotically “clicked in.” It’s also mixed a little clumsily, sticking out of the mix like a slightly bulging eye.
The band delivers eleven tracks that try to develop contrasting ideas and imagery, but not all of them sit at the same level of quality. So the album wobbles. Sometimes it falls for clichés too. Still, there are moments that clearly show Landfall are a band of songwriting talents, like the opener Rush Hour, which works as a kind of allegory to the famous Addicted to Rush (Mr. Big), or the excellent Road of Dreams in the second half of the album. Then there’s the ballad Don’t Come Easy, whose middle-eight shares something with the Duran Duran hit Ordinary World, though the resemblance is really fleeting and even charmingly naive. It suggests that Landfall are a band still honing their own recognizable sound, since the material carries quite a few reserves and maybe even some naivety, in the sense of taking quick satisfaction in the songwriting level the band has reached at this stage of its evolution.
So Landfall are a band that needs a bit more time and experience to deliver their best. There’s no shortage of talent or ambition. Above all, they’ll need to find a better producer, bring at least a keyboardist into the ranks, and use that to build more sonic variety. As a debut, “The Turning Point” is a perfectly nice promise of a bright artistic future for the band.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Rush Hour
2. No Way Out
3. Jane’s Carousel
4. Across The Street
5. Don’t Come Easy
6. Taxi Driver
7. Distant Love
8. Roundabout
9. Road Of Dreams
10. Hope Hill
11. Sound Of The City
Lineup:
Gui Oliver – vocals
Marcelo Gelbcke – guitar
Thiago Forbeci – bass
Felipe Souzza – drums
