Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: De La Cruz
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2013
Length: 45:37
Rating: 3.5/5
This year you’ll be hard-pressed to run into a more potently filthy sleaze rock album than De La Cruz’s debut, called »Street Level«. De La Cruz are Aussies led by the excellent guitarist Casey Jones, teamed up with a New Zealand »interloper« in the lead vocal spot, Roxxi Catalano, whose vocal power can, in full flight, take on the sonic dimensions of an air-raid siren.
Even though it’s a debut, things have been simmering away since 2007. YouTube works wonders. The videos and demo recordings uploaded to the channel brought Jones and Catalano together, and in 2009 the latter flew over from New Zealand to Australia to record vocals for the band’s first EP.
»Sunstrip Street Level« should really have been the album’s title. With the extremely lively, white-hot cranked-up production this »greasy hard rock« record wallows in, you can instantly draw parallels with the energy of late-eighties bands, from Poison and Skid Row to Ratt, with melodic chorus hooks carved out in the mold of good old Def Leppard (»Turn It Up«, »Legions Of Love«, »Set the Night«).
De La Cruz aren’t reinventing the wheel. The mid-tempo »Dreaming« feels pretty clichéd in its arrangement choices. The vocal harmonies that here and there back up the lead vocal follow the Def Leppard commandments of arranging. The voice is nasal, piercing, and in the mid-range it isn’t nearly as convincing as in the high and highest registers, where it’s as potent as the siren of a Stuka JU-87 dive bomber. The intro to »Invincible« is a textbook tribute to the Whitesnake hits from the »1987« album – listen to the tone of the voice and the approach to shaping the verse melodies.
Catalano is strongest in the highest registers. Paired with excellent guitar work that swears by an extreme riff stranglehold and fires with full balls whenever it hits its polished solos, songs like »Street Level«, »Worlds Collide«, »S.E.X.« and »Set the Night« deliver the most convincing rock ‘n’ roll catchiness. A vocal aimed at extreme heights. It’s piercing, arrogantly cheeky, and in its devilishly screechy whirlwind it’s downright infectious!
»Street Level« is no artistic breakthrough. It doesn’t offer anything special musically. It’s an album of retro nostalgia. It serves up a repackaged hard rock formula. A dirty rock template that’s proven to work. Especially if you play it as hard, as committed and as passionately as possible. That’s why the album catches fire despite all the clichés built into it. De La Cruz simply go at it with heart! Some naivety is definitely present. Especially in the move to close the album with the cliché ballad »Shine«, which »breaks« the superbly set-up buildup of voltage in the second half, as De La Cruz develop it through the run of »Worlds Collide«, »S.E.X.« and »Set the Night«.
A solid debut that’s excellently produced and played. De La Cruz are great musicians, and with this debut they’ve laid a firm cornerstone on which they can carelessly, and with even more determination, nurture their musical mission going forward.
You can already buy De La Cruz’s album “Street Level” at:
Line-up
Roxxi Catalano – vocals
Casey Jones – guitar
Rory Joy – guitar
Grant Daniell – bass guitar
Lacey Lane – drums
Production
De La Cruz
Tracklist
1. Street Level
2. Girls Go Wild
3. Turn It Up
4. Legions Of Love
5. Gimme Love
6. Cherry Bomb
7. Dreaming
8. Invincible
9. Worlds Collide
10. S.E.X.
11. Set The Night
12. Shine
