:: Track Listing

1. Sketches (20-Something Life)
2. If You Need the Morning
3. This Life
4. The Truth
5. Goodnight
6. Some You Give Away
7. Sing Song Sung
8. Eyes While Open
9. Cats
10. Non Believer
11. Capitol Pill

:: Record Review

La Rocca

The Truth
(Dangerbird; 2006)

Rating: 71%
Combined Rating: 67%


Anthems. Big, unapologetic ones played at high volumes. The mere mention of such generally brings a sneer to the lips of all right-thinking music scribes, because everybody knows that blatant, crowd-uniting singalongs are anathema to the purposely diffuse, anti-commercial artists that said music snobs crave. Right?

La Rocca apparently failed to receive this memo. From frontman Bjorn Baillie’s initial “yeah!” accompanied by loud bursts of heavily compressed guitar on galloping opener “Sketches (20-Something Life),” it’s pretty apparent that anything resembling subtlety is going out the window in favor of writing the types of songs that’ll sound best blaring from a summer festival stage in an open field in La Rocca’s native Ireland. Enjoyment of said songs will probably increase proportionally to the number of pints you ingest alongside your best mates too.

Provided that’s the kind of thing that your band does well, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not unlike early Whiskeytown, or the handful of decent tracks off of Rhett Miller’s first solo LP, La Rocca specialize in vaguely country-tinged, meat and potatoes rock that’s hardly original but still satisfying with the right dosage. Though the band unquestionably possesses the ability to write a catchy song, they benefit more from an unabashed willingness to GO BIG.

That talent is on full display during The Truth’s first five tracks, each an unapologetic anthem, each a potential single, even if each is not exactly distinct from the others. Fortunately, not everything on the album blends; indeed, while La Rocca generally likes to keep things in the red (check future festival barnstormer “If You Need The Morning”), the relatively subdued piano and acoustic guitar figures of “Goodnight” probably comprise the album’s finest track. Employing levels of subtlety lacking elsewhere, it succeeds via an eminently memorable chorus and a masterful, goosebumps-inducing effect towards the song’s end where every instrument other than the acoustic guitar drops out of the mix. While recent Belle & Sebastian knob-twiddler Tony Hoffer could have stood to produce The Truth with a little less compression in its guitars, he deserves credit for dressing up the record with touches like audible vibraphone, sprightly basslines, and even some seemingly misplaced analog keyboards which gradually grow on the listener.

The Truth stumbles somewhat in its second half, mostly on account of the simple fact that there is such a thing as one anthem too many, and the songwriting threatens to cross the fine line between passionate and utterly cheesy. The teen drama-ready “Some You Give Away” is particularly cringe-worthy, an acoustic weeper about friends lost “out on that empty road” planted firmly within Gavin DeGraw’s wheelhouse. “Eyes While Open” is a corny anti-industry rant with embarrassing lyrics, and the B-side fodder of “Cats” is simply unremarkable. Fortunately, The Truth rebounds with the wistful “Non-Believer” and the booze-centric waltz “Capitol Pill,” ending the record in charmingly ramshackle fashion (and again, great chorus).

La Rocca is an honest band, and while originality isn’t its strong suit, I’m guessing its members would hardly argue otherwise, so the complete lack of pretense on The Truth is refreshing. They just want to play populist rock anthems, and more often than not, they’re good at doing just that. God forbid more bands play to their strengths.

David M. Goldstein :: 28 August 2006 |