Album Review: Leiana – Lucky #3

“This is a continuous process of shedding skin…rebuilding and moving forward” says singer Leiana on her 3rd album, Lucky #3.  And is it third time lucky?  I think it probably is.

Citing her influences as 1970’s British punk and SoCal hardcore scenes and with Anthrax heavyweight Rob Caggiano on board this Philly girl has developed her own sound style which she describes as “part rock, park punk, edgy, and tough, but with unyielding tenacity”

Lucky #3 kicks off with ‘Nothing =You’ a riotous tune that has been chosen as the first single from the album and rightly so.  Its infectious, foot tapping and has a chorus you find yourself lying awake  at night humming.  The video itself is a ‘must check out’ with the same animation that is used for the album artwork and a reinforcement of that catchy chorus as Leiana reminds us to ‘always root for the underdog’.

Track three, ‘Down To You’ has another infectious chorus that just begs you to sing along to it and that seems to be a common theme throughout the entire album, you just can’t help but sing along its so catchy.

‘Breathe’ appears halfway through the album and is a beautiful ballad that takes on a more melodic, pop feel, something that her vocal range is more than capable of doing, and doing well.

The penultimate track on the album is the seemingly country influenced ‘Day is Done’, it doesn’t have quite the same edge to it as the rest of the album but is a pleasant tune in its own right.  I do feel this is probably the weakest track on the album and is miles away though from the final track the anthemic ‘I Don’t Wanna Be’ a song which you could imagine being belted out in arena’s worldwide and the perfect end to a stomping journey.

When you listen to Lucky #3 you can hear so many influences, Joan Jett, Biff Naked and Lita Ford (in fact, its worth checking out Leiana’s cover of Lita’s ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ over on the myspace page as it is an absolute cracker of which I’m sure Lita would be proud) not to mention a smattering of The Donna’s and a hint of Girlschool.

Verdict? Its one of those albums that you only need to hear once for it to stick in your head. Melodic, infectious and gritty Lucky #3 could be just that for Leiana.

Rating 8

The Mysterious Case Of The Vanishing Band…

Download 2010 was a memorable year for a few reasons, mainly though because it was the 30th Anniversary of the festival in both its Download and Monsters of Rock guises. Unfortunately this year there was a bit of a mystery…AC/DC vanished!

Promoting the 30th Anniversary was a big thing for the festival and there was plenty of merchandise to celebrate.  The official programme this year detailed all the big bands to have ever played, a celebratory T Shirt featured the logo’s of rock legends from Rainbow to Aerosmith, all of whom graced the hallowed Donington soil.  But one band was missing.  In fact, 100,000 concert goer’s could be forgiven for thinking that they dreamt that AC/DC headlined on the Friday this year, because on paper (and t Shirt!) it just didn’t happen.

For reasons known only to themselves the mighty AC/DC decided not to lease their logo out to the Festival, this meant that on every T Shirt a gap was left above Them Crooked Vultures where the head-liners should have appeared.  A similar story was told with the Lanyards and the Festival Program itself held no mention of the band at all.  It was as if they were never there.

Of course AC/DC bought with them their own merchandise which was for sale all weekend, but people wanted their traditional line up shirt to look back on and reminisce in the years to come.  The irony of all this was that the touts were out in force on the Wednesday and Thursday selling their own T Shirts which had a full line up with the AC/DC logo.

It seems to me that a worrying precedent has been set by AC/DC, whilst the Festival Organisers are bending over backwards to secure some of the biggest names in rock to perform, is it right that any band should be bigger than Download itself?  AC/DC’s decision not to be included on any of the merchandise I feel showed a complete lack of respect for the festival, and above all the fans that paid a large chunk of money to come and see them.

My First WordPress Post!

So, here it is!  My very first WordPress post.  I have to confess the site doesn’t seem as complex as I had first thought.  I was hoping to link this over to my twitter, but as I protect my Tweets that is something I’m going to have to give a little more thought to.

So for now, here’s to my first post!