Album: Shakedown
Source: Sahar Oz
By: Sahar Oz
The Start's debut album is a catchy fusion of glam, modern rock, and new wave with a punk attitude and an effective lead singer. Aimee Echo, the band's vocalist and primary songwriter, has got the full package: she is easy to look at, even easier to hear. I discovered this CD at The Record Archive and had to know who was responsible for the oh-so-80s aggressive rock that the clerk kept playing on repeat. This album has 11 tracks of textually light music that instantly makes you want to dance. Not club music by any stretch, but this is definitely a welcome addition to the CD trays of anyone who loves Blondie, No Doubt, Garbage, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. It's no surprise that in their lengthy thank you's, The Start pay their respects to Siouxsie, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and U2. Truth be told, the band's music doesn't conjure memories of Robert Smith or Bono and their friends as much as it does of everyone else named above. Echo's voice and singing style may answer the question: what if Shirley Manson and Gwen Stefani had a baby girl?
Echo is not quite at Manson's level, but she certainly outshines Stefani, especially on the more exciting songs ("Communion," "Dirty Lion," "Her Song," and "Time"). "Time" sounds like the best song Garbage never composed, in the style of the last track on Version 2.0 - "You Look So Fine." Appropriately enough, "Time" is the last track on Shakedown!, a brooding song with suspense that builds up amid enveloping synthesizers. This is in marked contrast to the first half of The Start's debut album. The opening title track begins with intriguing keyboards, but Echo immediately takes over and Jeff Jaeger and Scott Ellis provide loud, powerful support on bass and drums, respectively. Their abilities notwithstanding, Jaeger's and Ellis' contributions are overshadowed somewhat by those of Jamie Miller, the band's synthesizer wizard. Miller also plays guitar and, according to the band's liner notes, "other things." Whatever these other things are, they only improve the sound. Miller has a good ear for catchy hooks and riffs, and he tempers the more noisy songs with a healthy dose of synthesizers that prevents the melody from disappearing in guitar feedback.
Besides the title track, Shakedown!'s 2nd and 5th tracks, "Gorgeous" and "Hang On Me," were slated to become hits. "Gorgeous" apparently took off on some video channels, but the band remains a somewhat hidden treasure. The first six tracks on the album are definitely stronger than the 2nd half of the disc, but as mentioned, "Time," the final track, is a very pleasant surprise at the end. "Communion" is the other stand-out song, and its amusing play on words would have garnered the band a bona fide hit with sufficient P.R. Still, this is a very good album and an excellent way for four young veterans of the L.A. nineties rock scene to begin their new project. Shakedown! was produced by Josh Abraham, whose work with Orgy brought that band significant success a few years ago. Echo's purr and rant throughout the album is appealing, and her genuine love for the 80s is most evident when she pulls a Gary Numan and starts to talk in the middle of one track: "Well, you're all dressed up and you've got nothing to lose and I see you've brought your dancing shoes / Let's figure out how to use those things, come on come on come on dance with me, dance I say!" John Hughes should be working on a new film just to use that song, perhaps Pretty In Pink 2?
