Life of Agony: Soul Searching Sun

There are few things in this world that are better than mature, quality rock music. And there hasn't been an album as good as Soul Searching Sun, a very mature piece of work, in a long, long time.

Keith Caputo, this venerable outfit's singer, sounds a little more relaxed than on River Runs Red, and his tone is lower and more serious. It works perfectly. On songs like "Weeds" and "Hope", his tone is the glue that holds everything together, steady and confident. At other times, like on "Tangerine" and "None", he dances high above the rest of the band, seemingly plucking emotions out of the air.

The music is solid, thick, at times funky, and always well-written; it moves from fast and angry punk to restrained half-ballad to the unique sound of songs like "Angry Tree" and "Hemophiliac In Me", both of which are incredibly melodic and a great deal of fun to listen to. If ever there was a band that deserved radio airplay, it is Life of Agony.

The limited edition of the CD includes a few bonus tracks, one of which is an "unplugged" version of the brilliant "Weeds." Life of Agony reminds us here what the whole point of unplugged music was: it's more than playing songs on acoustic instruments without making them sound any different. (Take Alice in Chains, for instance, who consistently take songs that were written for electric instruments and play them acoustic as-is, and the results are always dreadful.) This "Weeds" is an entirely different song, filled with a mood far-removed from the punkish original.

Life of Agony remains the perfect band for intelligent people who want to like bands like STP and their contemporaries, but just can't dumb themselves down quite that much; and Soul Searching Sun is a perfect snapshot of this widely talented and inventive group of fellows.

Added: January 1st 2004
Reviewer: SoT Archives
Score:
Related Link: Life of Agony's Web Site
Hits: 5014
Language: english

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