Review Summary: Sweet and succinct.
Pop rock and its related styles are all about charisma – why would we listen to it otherwise? In that regard I find the genre to be very hit or miss, with varying levels of ‘hit’ entailing a multitude of emotional reactions. It can be argued that Ledaswan, who play a somewhat generic form of the genre, do not really stick out from the crowd, but when considering the point I made above there is certainly a great deal of charisma to be found in their music.
Vocalist Erica Monzon has a sweet and delicate voice which resonates sublimely with the crisp production and simple (yet reflective) lyrics. Some of the tracks follow a pop ‘path’ a little more closely (’25 Years’) while others make a point of being wistful (‘Six is Better’). The combination recalls bands like
The Cranberries and
Trespassers William’s early material – the last track ‘What a Way Two Drown’ sounds like it could have easily come straight from TW’s
Anchor record. This EP was in fact mixed by a member of the latter group and so similarities in the overall sound can be easily identified.
Despite the evident coherence of the songs here, there is a lot of room to improve. While Erica can be sweet, she sometimes can be sickly so, and to prescribe any sort of development I can only say that the pop sensibilities the band are trying to stick to are only holding them back. More experimental and more emotional forms could easily fit into the basic template Ledaswan have created, so hopefully the group chooses to capitalise on this foundation with future records.
