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A Skylit Drive - Adelphia
| Sputnikmusic |
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A Skylit Drive burst onto the scene in 2007 with the release of their well-received EP titled She Watched The Sky. The band received less favorable reception for their 2008 LP Wires and the Concept of Breathing, a generic release that saw the band regress from their previously successful effort. The California post-hardcore outfit’s 2009 release, Adelphia, sees the band repeat what they did in 2008, releasing an average, mediocre at best record with repetitive, dragging song structure and an oft-poor vocal performance; the one exception being they do it all better this time around. A Skylit Drive actually put together a fairly solid musical release, as the instrumentation is tight, even enjoyable, and the introduction of a more synth-reliant sound works to the band’s advantage. Adelphia starts with “Prelude To A Dream”, a bizarre and overtly generic track that epitomizes everything that is right and wrong with the album. It starts with a roaring breakdown, a solid one at that, only to be immediately marred by the band’s unspectacular harsh vocals and sub-par clean singing. However, the song goes on to showcase great drumming and excellent lead guitar, two areas the band has proven themselves to be sound in. The song is catchy, infectious even, and is a sign of good and bad things to come. “Heavens” is another track worth noting, as it is clearly displays everything this band can do well and poorly. Weak vocals hurt the song, only to be saved by great instrumentation and an epic moment beginning around the two minute mark. Those ninety seconds of near-musical perfection display a band with a good deal of potential, though they have thus far refused to harness it....full text |
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| Strangeglue |
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While A Skylit Drive may be guilty of being bandwagon jumpers - or inspired by the post-hardcore forefathers - Adelphia makes it clear that the boys slot quite comfortably into step five of the above guide. They've stuck around long after all of the scenesters jumped over to crunk-core, grindie, rave-rock and hip-rock and proven that despite their rather generic appeal, they've nailed their chosen genre. Nailed it right to the wall and sprayed whipped cream on top. One could point squarely to front-man Mike Jagmin as the reason for the band's appeal. His clean vocals steer the band far away from the adolescent whines which populated the vast majority of recent pop-punk and post-hardcore acts. The formant and timbre of his voice are pleasingly thick whilst still residing in the higher registers. As such, he manages to sustain the high pitches without losing the humanity in his voice and sounding sterile, as Anthony Green and Claudio Sanchez occasionally do. We did refer to the band being slightly in the way of generic, as such, as you may have guessed, backing up the clean vocals is Brian White with the obligatory metalcore-esque screams, although he does tend to enter the mid-register occupied by bands such as Funeral Diner, Fightstar and Blood Brothers more than sporadically. Due to the almost complete absence of low-slung, sludgy riffs, the low growls seem particularly out-of-place, surely an element which could be jettisoned easily for album number three....full text |
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| Snobsmusic |
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Adelphia is the new sophomore release from Sacramento Emo band A Skylit Drive. The vocals are definitely the centrepiece of the new album. Lead singer Michael "Jag" Jagmin possesses a high pitched voice which gives the songs a distinctive character. Unfortunately where bands like Jaguar Love succeed with a vocalist like this, A Skylit Drive fails miserably. For some reason known only to the band, they insist on including screaming from a much deeper voice on nearly every track. This makes Jagmin's vocals sound even more high pitched to the point of being comical. It's like having Alvin and the Chipmunks singing with Satan giggling in the background. Atrocious. The songwriting is also blase. The lyrics are stereotypical Emo toss-offs without much in the way of originality or wit. The backing music is the usual generic alternative rock that usually accompanies songs like these....full text |
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