D’Amato – Synesthesia / 2006 Vicious Jasmine / 4 Tracks / http://www.damatomusic.com / Reviewed 21 May 2006

The style of rock that D’Amato plays is what is popular on rock radio; the band attempts to create a style of music for this EP that is the same blend of influences from the early nineties on that would normally be found on rock radio. Thus, there are heavy nods to acts like Alice in Chains, King’s X, but there are also nods to Disturbed and Evans Blue and all the rest of the nu rock that has captured the radio. The band is definitely ready for the radio; there is little doubt in my mind that they wouldn’t fit perfectly on any major metropolitan station.

However, the tracks that are present on this EP are not anything special; sure, there are a number of different songs that individuals can sing along with but the power that they have over listeners is fleeting at best. “Speak No Evil” is the track that is the tops of the output on this disc; D’Amato make sure that the lyrics take the most audible levels of the track, and couch some electronic sounds just underneath that to make the band at least somewhat audibly similar to acts like Fear Factory. The track does have a nice bifurcation in regards to the vocals and the instrumentation; when these two distinct strains unite, the result is something completely different than what the band was trying to do with the rest of the track. “Speak No Evil” gives me a little bit of hope that the band could move to a full-length album and make it into the tour de force that acts like Evans Blue released this year, instead of the utterly forgettable radio-rock of acts like Ditchwater.

The band ends this EP with “Edge of Disaster”, a hard-rock track that ties together early Kid Rock with a wall of guitars to make something that will be ultimately common to anyone who is listening to it. The vocals try to go towards a Southern rock type of inflection, but D’Amato is too spastic during this track to pull all the disparate elements together. D’Amato has a very uneven entrance into the world of radio rock with “Synesthesia”. The tracks may be something that individuals can bob their head to, but there is little in the way of material that will stick to listeners after this disc kicks off. Kudos goes to the band for the funky sound that ends the disc, but there needs to be a greater refinement of their skills before they can impress listeners fully.

Top Track: Speak No Evil

Rating: 5.1/10

[JMcQ]