Stribeck
Demo

As the piles of CD’s are starting to interfere with Air Traffic Control it’s high time for a Sunday stroll through the wad of tunes handed to me by the Editor. Keep sending them in though – we’re aiming to make the Editor homeless leaving the CD’s to inherit his mortgage!

Stribeck, according to the press release, are striving to create a new hybrid of music called ‘divergent rock’ by trying to incorporate everything from blues to metal. ‘Until Today’ cranks this demo to life with a pounding bass and gentle picking guitar over the top. It then halts for a moment then announces its arrival with a blast of seventies RAWK!

It is evident straight away that Stribeck are trying to do something different and while I’m not entirely convinced it is unique, it is difficult to liken them to any particular band. It’s like a dog that’s had so many promiscuous fore-fathers you can’t really tell one from another.

The second song, ‘Please’, is a little more punchy, with wailing guitars and strong vocals. Unfortunately I just find myself losing attention towards the end of the song. There’s nothing wrong with it only it just doesn’t offer much change.

After reading what I’ve written so far it may appear as if I don’t like Stribeck. However, this is not the case. I can see what they are trying to do, I just can’t seem to connect to it in the same way I do with many other bands. It’s certainly no lie to say there’s a lot of ‘retro’ music about nowadays, and only a small fraction of these are genuinely average. Indeed musically this is extremely well put together, and does showcase their talents, especially since this is a home-recording.

‘Games’, the final tune on offer is a funky number focussing on the bass and beats carrying the song along. The vocals are strong and clear and it creates a ambient mood of some kind, just like A-Line flares and space hoppers.

All in all, considering this is their first offering and the size of the challenge they have set themselves, this is not a bad start. Once they get some more songs recorded and nailed down their style, they can only improve on this not too shabby offering.