Liverpool Sound and Vision 8.5/10
The road ahead of us at times can seem long and arduous, it can resonate with the sound of the bleak or be thrilling with the view point of the triumphant; it is the road of discontent or the avenue of pleasurable ease, the road that no matter what keeps giving, it’s no wonder that Kerouac was obsessed with it.
It is a road that Chris Laterzo has travelled and if anyone has the ability to show how the highway of life should be traversed with style, an overwhelming amount of quality and a humility that is gratifyingly abundant then Mr. Laterzo has it all to offer and in his fifth studio album West Coast Sound, the offering is one that cannot and should not be ignored.
The quality of any writing, be in the form of poetry, lyrical or the finest novelists is how they express not just emotion but how the landscape, the scenery in which they are part of, changes them. If they can do that with a blurring of the panoramic and the sensual appreciation of a melody that subtly asks you to sit in wonder at the environment being shown, then that musical landscape, of wanting to be part of something so natural, so effervescent is a combination worth persisting with.
West Coast Sound is a visual melody, the scenes in which Chris Laterzo offers no illusion but a sense of the prime optic experience made vocal. In songs such as the album’s title track, the excellent Drag, the cutting cynicism of Subaru and Chaperone, the all out American Country Rock is enough to make you wish you had never packed your bags and found your way back home. The sheer scale of the album, understated to the point of brilliance, the music version of sitting upon the hills overlooking Los Angeles or the ant like insignificance of sitting underneath the towering natural rock formations that give the American deserts their stature is to be applauded and shown for what it is, a piece of crowning Americana.
Sometimes the road is long but with great music aiding the journey, it can be made enjoyable and inspiring, West Coast Sound has the swish of brilliance throughout.
Ian D. Hall