This release from Gabe Vitek is burning up the charts from the edge of my living room all the way to the edge of the hallway. It is quite frankly the No. 1 CD in my CD player right now. It also happens to be the only CD in my CD player, so there isn’t much real competition.
Gabe’s sound is one of piano-driven rock. Most songs are mid-tempo and instrumentation is mostly drums, piano, a single lead male vocal, electric guitar and electric bass. Occasionally, other instrumentation such as strings and keyboards are heard, as well as a harmony or doubling of the voice from time to time.
I have to describe the album as pop rock, but as the album progresses, the style likewise gets slightly more progressive.
For a good portion of the album, I am left feeling really bored. At first listen I was unimpressed and even somewhat bothered by certain aspects of the sound. The vocals specifically are presented very dry. The dry feeling in combination with a vocal that almost has a pop punk type of movement between notes really bothered me. The voice lacks edge and lacks body. However, as I listened to the album more, and as the album itself progressed, I found myself looking past the vocals and actually enjoying a bit of the music.
After listening to the album a good deal, I’ve determined it is very average. There are 11 songs on the album and about 3 or 4 of them are good, occurring in a group late in the album. So the effect is that the album gets better as it goes. But, there are too many mediocre songs early in the album to really call the whole thing good.
Overall, Gabe Vitek and the Ivory have a pretty decent product with this Voices album. Though the music lacks in places, the production and quality of the whole album is very strong, so the album gets an average review in the end.
A lack of any exceptionally strong radio-styled singles (track 8 almost could be) will likely keep this album from being played very much on the radio, and a lack of any particularly strong artistic vibe for most of the album will keep it from scoring big with the art crowd. There are some excellent moments though, so I would say it’s worth a listen—someone who likes Ben Folds might like this album, and the progressive rock fan will find parts to enjoy.
