Review: CSS - La Liberacion

Originally posted on www.soundblab.com

Brazilian rock band CSS return with their third studio album La Liberacion. The album is an eclectic mix of musical styles clearlyinfluenced by electronica and alternative rock and overall it's a good effort, but it appears they may have stumbled into that difficult third album territory which most musicians become a victim to. Much of the album can be considered background music, as a number of the songs tend to blend into one another.

The album does make up for this background music flaw by mixing it up and not having every track brimming to top with electronic beats. They've alternated the sounds, with the opening tracks being more influenced by the beats and thuds of a club before moving into more alternative rock orientated tracks as the album progresses, still throwing in the odd electronic beat in here and there for good measure.

Although the album does have a tendency to go on a bit and drone into the background there are a number of stand out tracks that should get fans excited. These come in the form of the first single from the album, 'Hits Me Like a Rock' which features vocals from Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie and a good beat. The exchange of words between the band's lead singer Lovefoxxx and Gillespie almost sounds as though the song has a slight battle going on, which overall works and makes for a good first release from the album.

'City Girl', another fine track, might actually do quite well if released as a single, due to the Kesha-esque sound to it. Yes I know it's strange that I've just compared CSS to Kesha, but on this song it sounds as though there is a huge influence from the pop train-wreck, but I don't know how fans will respond to this. 'Echo of Love' features a chant-style chorus. True to the song it sounds like an echo and is one of the better alternative rock influenced tracks. Sounds pretty good so far but after the Portuguese sung 'La Liberacion' - probably one of my favourite tracks even though I can't speak the language - the album goes a bit down-hill as the remainder of the tracks all blend into one, and you get that background boring sound. Luckily the final two tracks, the XX sounding 'Red Alert' with its almost spoken-word vocal and 'Fuck Everything' with its rocky sound and aggressive vocals really come through to save the album. But will some of the fans stick around to hear this far?

Overall, the album is good in parts and has a few stand-out tracks, but with around five or six great tracks out of 11, it doesn't really bode well for the band. The best thing they can do now is to hit the road and try and gain some support for the album, because performed live with the interaction of a crowd it may actually sound better.