Tony Pica – Soul Occupation / 16 Tracks / 2002 Self-Released / http://www.tonypica.com / [email protected] / Reviewed 22 April 2004 /

Mixing the overdone fratboy-with-a-guitar cliché with funky-blues cliché, Tony starts off “Soul Occupation” with a number of innocuous tracks that don’t really affect any aspect of emotions – rather, they are great songs to tap one’s foot to while drinking a beer. Calling together the spirits of Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson for “Regina”, Tony Pica really just finds eir’s wheels spinning as the disc spins on. Washing out Tony’s clear vocals for standard distortion, “Waking Up in February” has too many different processes trying to achieve different purposes to be a coherent song. While the recording is good on “Soul Occupation”, there just aren’t tracks that experiment enough to rouse my attention. Sure, tracks like “Downtown” may further the seventies sound in Pica’s work, but even the wanky guitar on the aforementioned track can’t save it from it being just another track. Another all-in-one style of player, Tony may play acoustic and electric guitars, piano, keyboards, and bass, but with each album I hear from these renaissance individuals, I wonder if having an band would allow for some difference between each of the tracks.

Even when there is a veritable band full of instruments to back up Tony, the fact that we are left with a number of tracks that are bare, such as “Waiting Much Too Long”. The track, using the same blues/funk driven guitar riffs and guitar lines, still leave individuals wanting more regardless of any sense of lushness. Incorporating hints of Neil Young in “Flippin’ Through The USA”, Tony is able to capture that pop sensibility that has eluded eir for so long – instead of just being monotonous, the track sounds as if I could conceivably hear it on classic rock radio. Tony can’t maintain eir’s position as king of the hill, as the follow-up track to “Flippin’”, “How You Used To Be” is only coherent during the bridge, intertwining a solo-prone guitar with an ever-present bass line.

“All God’s Children” has Tony singing in an almost-painful raspy, falsetto-Dylan voice which mars the solid piano/bass dichotomy of the underside of the track. The looking-backwards nature of “Soul Occupation” is purely based on good principles, but Tony isn’t able to transfer these intentions fully to compact disc. There is no point on this disc where I would challenge Tony’s ability as a musician, but there is not that spark on the disc that creates something more, some emotional tie, that individuals can feel an individual link with Tony on.

Top Track: Flippin’ Through The USA, Wrong Side Of Town

Rating: 4.7/10