The packaging for Silverlake, California's Shapes Of Race Cars full-length debut Power certainly puts off a "rock" vibe. The album cover features a rock dude with his tight jeans, Chuck Taylor's, and leather jacket bending over as if he's just stumbled out of the dive bar in front of a white background. The inside cover features an image of the trio in what can be assumed is their rock attire full on with front man wearing a cowboy hat. This bodes well for the band (see Lemmy and Al Jorgenson about the cowboy hat). When you package your album with these types of images it certainly better live up to those images and Shapes of Race Cars does this to some degree.Power opens with the title track which is a full on garage rocker with a thumping bass and gritty guitars. Now when I think of a song called "Power" off the top of my head I think of complete male chauvinistic subject matter but Shapes Of Race Cars takes it in the opposite direction targeting the ladies. It's not that this is a new subject in rock n' roll because we've all dealt with a girl so Power hungry she'll do anything to manipulate a guy but it never gets old to bitch about it.
While the title track certain builds Shapes of Race Cars good karma the band strays for the meat of the album for the most part. "Passenger" is a rather flat song that straddles the realms of indie and pop rock that features the almost clean yet almost distorted guitars that indie rock bands like to use in order to avoid rocking too hard. The high point of another of SRC's departure from the rockers is "Tokyo" which has one awesome high point - the "hey-yo's" that sound like the ones that Sting is famous for belting out. Shapes Of Race Cars begins moving back in the rock direction with "Kraftwerk" by actually taking a step backwards in musical history with its surf rock inspired beat and uber-catchy chorus.
"Sound The Alarm" kicks in right away with an intro that has Ramones written all over it. It just gets dirtier from there with "I.C.U." While certainly not rockin' enough to send you to the actual ICU (sorry for the awful pun) it will certainly get your foot tapping at the least. Unfortunately, like many albums, Power doesn't end of the strongest of notes. "Apocolypse Hurts" is simply a mid-tempo pop-rock song that simply would be lost in the mix had it not been the last song on the album.
For an unsigned band, Power is certainly a solid release that should help the band to earn the attention of a record label. Unfortunately, I get the feeling it would end up being as a pop or alternative act not a true rock band. Shapes Of Race Cars has got some quality songs on Power and most of them happen to be rockers. So, my advice boys, give us what your cowboy hat-wearing lead singer of a rock band image gives us - quality rock n' roll.
