CD Review: L’Avventura "Your Star Was Shining"

According to the L'Avventura's bio the two front men of this band, Jeff Davis and Griffen Fergus, met when one heard the other playing a Roxy Music song on the platform of the London Underground. This story may or may not be true; it goes on to tell that they met there bassist while he was performing with a trained monkey. True or not, the idea of a "life on the road" permeates the entire album.

Every story and character we meet throughout this album has a real concrete sense of place. Whether it be the San Franciscan nostalgia of “Pretend You Don’t See Me”, where our story teller “crashes out on Ocean Beach” or the story of a childhood growing up in Canada listening to the DJ “Rocket Sue”. More exotic locales are explored in the charming “Mrs. Yugoslavia” which conjures the sort of woman James Bond might have met when he went backpacking in college, a woman who’s got “cute Serbian shoes” and a “bulletproof dress”.

Musically they manage something that’s always refreshing in a new musician. They change styles subtly from song to song without ever sacrificing song craft in order to fit into a form. There range isn’t huge, I’d say it goes mostly from the Beatles to The Who. Still they do each style well and bring there own voice to them. I’d personally rather hear someone do a sixties homage well than have them try to put a hip-hop beat in there somewhere badly.

Lyrically the songs paint great pictures of places and people. I often got the feeling I could almost hear the lyricists winking at me through thick pop culture references; one song references Rubber Soul twice with “On my rug with your sitar” and closing with “Baby you can drive my car, beep, beep, yes”. Earlier on the album they alternate mentions of “Massive Attack” and “Bacharach”. It all gets to be a little too cute for me sometimes.

Overall the record hit’s way more than it misses. L’Avventura seems to really know what it is they want to say and they seem to have the confidence to say it right without staring too hard at there own navels. In the world on the singer/songwriter these qualities are all too rare. Bravo!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Download: "Rocket Sue"