Album Review
UXL - Can I Dream AgainUXL - Can I Dream Again

UXL’s debut album has been causing quite a stir amongst certain areas of the music industry. If you believe their press release then we are listening to the future of British rock music. I hope not.

I liked debut single, ‘Beautiful Today’ mainly because I was impressed by young vocalist John Tierney’s efforts, there’s no denying he has a fantastic talent. Unfortunately it is a vehicle for a fairly bland album that could have been produced by a number of Middle America’s lumbering rock ‘giants’ such as Creed or 3 doors Down, only with a considerably larger amount of cheese grated on top. ‘Beautiful Today’ is easily the best song on the album, as it is out of the way quickly at track 3, what we are left with is Dad rock downbeat songs like ‘Stranger’, which has a frankly hilarious Kenny G saxophone in the bridge, nice.

One of the more interesting moments on the album is ‘This Life’, with off beat drums and melodic guitars, it’s a passable effort, its slightly let down by clichéd lyrics and possibly a little over-effort from Tierney, taking his Scott Stapp hero worship to the next level.

Musically, the album is impressive, its not simple by any means, they are all talented musicians, however there is a lack of identity to the songs, I’m sure this will come with age as the band progress through their career. They definitely found an excellent cohort in Mark Stuart, producer for Wonderstuff, Phil Lynott and Magnum, his experience is evident, production is slick and the sound is large enough to give a stadium-filling aspect to UXL’s sound. Unfortunately there is still the matter of ill-advised strings in ‘Change’ and synths in ‘Make It’ that contribute to making potentially eclectic album come across as pretentious and clichéd.

The future is theirs for the taking, the talent is there, if they can find a sound that works for them then they may just be as big as they claim. Maybe.

1/5

Review by Jakk
 Band Members

UXL - Band
John Tierney (vocals, guitar)
PJ Tierney (Guitar)
Dan Clark (Bass, Keyboard)
Paul Tierney (Drums)

 Track Listing
Coming Soon
 Band Related Links
UXL Official Website
UXL Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?