I Am Here... Are You There?

Review by Dorothy Parvaz

Yet, although it has its high points, the album overall is just a little dull.

The slower songs suffer from a certain icky metal ballad feel. In "Tower," for instance, the mini guitar solo has a bit of a Scorpions feel to it, while the vocalist just gives in to this Bono/Geddy Lee type of thing. Then the drums fall into a low, rolling deal and the bass just makes everything seem even muddier. These slower songs also all sound the same, more or less, which can really confuse you if you think you've skipped a couple of songs -- goddam, there's that same bridge again -- I honestly thought the skip button on my stereo was busted.

Mossy Ledge are definitely at their best during their faster songs. There's a really sweet bouncy sort of quality to those tunes. Sadly, though, they do more slow songs than fast, so the CD only has three or four solid toe-tapping tunes.

I Am Here...Are You There? is one of those discs that makes you want to go see the band, not because one spin convinces you that Mossy Ledge are all that terrific, but because the aforementioned zippy tracks say something about the band's potential to sound pretty good live.

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