Soul Drift

Andy at Bent Penny Records kindly sent me the debut self-titled Tracy Starr album to listen to & review, & I must say I was blown away by the majority of it! They are a hard rock band from Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada and were formed by Steve LeBlanc and Daniel Dupuis (former members of An Acoustic Sin). Their biography describes them perfectly by saying they are “a revival of gutsy, hard hitting, tongue-in-cheek rock and roll” and the music makes you want to “crank up the car stereo”. I think that they sound like a mixture of Buckcherry’s sleaze & (a more interesting) Velvet Revolver, but that’s just me.

The album hits you instantly with ‘Yellow Rose’, which is the band’s new single & is followed by the amazing ‘Ride’ (the first single from the album). I think that ‘Ride’ is definitely the best song on the album, with the rockin’ ‘Step Right Up’ coming in at a close second. Both tracks have choruses that stay stuck in your head & music that you want to play at full volume, either to rock out or dance to. Other tracks to recommend from the album are ‘Sticks and Stones’, ‘Stand Up’ & ‘Chemical Sunshine’ (awesome sounding guitar).

The only downside to the album is that it loses momentum & gets a bit samey towards the end, which is a shame. I think that if the album had been shorter (maybe taking tracks such as acoustic/instrumental ‘401′ out), it would be a blinder of a debut album. Admittedly, it is a sound that has been heard before & it’s not anything new/original… but in my opinion, there can never be too many bands making the kind of music to just rock out & have a good time to. I like them a lot & think that they’re definitely a band to take note of!

You can hear full tracks from this album on their MySpace page & you can also buy the album from Amazon.com, Play.com & their record label.

Official Site | MySpace | Bent Penny Records