Driver of the Year

Some Girls Would Say (Future Appletree)
by Evan Solochek

The album opens with “The Squeeler,” which is a bubbly, keyboard-driven song that had me reaching for the stop button within the first minute. However, I resisted and went on to learn that opening the album with “The Squeeler” is a gross misrepresentation of the actual depth of music contained on subsequent songs. Ignoring the first song, Driver Of The Year put together a solid, yet confusingly eclectic album. While I’m not a fan of pigeon-holing bands into specific genres, bouncing from the lo-fi, bluesy feel of “Stuck Up Drunk,” whose twelve-bar riff did put images of smoky Chicago bars into my head, to the angry and dark “Cheap Ass Wine” had me wishing they’d pick a sound already and stick with it for at least two successive songs. Individually, the songs are strong and possess an eerie aura that I quite enjoy (with the exception of the first track), but collectively, there’s little cohesion, other than weak vocals.
(PO Box 191Davenport, IA 52805)