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Water & Bodies - Light Year

Water & Bodies

Light Year

Essentially Kaddisfly without their bass player, Water & Bodies funded their debut album through Kickstarter and came away with an alternately gleaming and underwhelming effort on Light Year. During hotspots like “1980,” with its frenetic energy and fuzzed-out, choice guitar sound, the album shines. But when it drags, it really drags (see the confused and awkward piano ballad “Already Gone”). Keyboardist/vocalist Christopher Ruff is the main perpetrator, sounding like the long-lost son of Living Colour’s Corey Glover and Mike Patton ca. Faith No More’s The Real Thing (we know, on paper that sounds rad, but not so much when you actually hear it). If Ruff had reined himself in just a touch, maybe more Dustin Kensrue and less dude from Alien Ant Farm, this album could have been a real benchmark for the resurgence of ’90s alt-rock. Moments of Light Year are transcendent, and not just for those who worshiped at the feet of early Faith No More or Thrice’s Vheissu a decade later (“Parallels”), but also for the kids who spent their angsty years peering through dyed-black bangs and downloading bad quality My Chemical Romance MP3s from the Pirate Bay. Water & Bodies have the same kind of career possibilities that Kaddisfly had; but the burning question is can they mutate beyond that and become the amazing band we only see hints of on Light Year?

EYOS http://www.myspace.com/waterandbodies

“1980”