Dear Leader - War Chords

Aaron Perrino's new "band", Dear Leader, has some big shoes to fill. It's a pretty daunting task to start out fresh after having your former band, The Sheila Divine, implode suddenly. In fact, it would probably have been easier to just give up, get a day job and forget about music for a while. Thankfully, Mr. Perrino didn't. Instead, he holed himself up at a studio in Cambridge, MA with friend Darren Ottaviani and emerged with his new solo project's first release, the War Chords EP, now available on Lunch Records. What's even more incredible is that he's not in a real "band", so to speak, but he's doing this all alone. The trademark Sheila Divine sound is missing from this one, which is both a good and bad thing. First, it's strange to hear Aaron's stellar vocal work over music that isn't TSD sounding. The songs are very different from what I was expecting to hear; there are a lot more acoustic guitars, jazzy drums, loops, effects, and keyboards. After settling in, this CD began to sound really natural. It's good to hear that Perrino isn't living in the past and is instead stretching his songwriting ability. "Rivalry" is the first song that really stood out to me with its beautiful lyrics, rolling bass, and crazy drum beats. The we have "Last One In", which is a beautiful, dark song with an ending featuring soaring vocals that are bound to give you chills. My personal favorite is "Flames", a sad/sweet song with lyrics that seem to be about how trying and tough a relationship can be. I also like "Weakness", the only real "rocker" on the disc, which has one of the most twisted sounding lead guitar parts accompanying a great screaming-sing-along chorus. The one place where War Chords suffers is in the sound of the production. I just don't think it is as big sounding as it should have been, but then again it's not as though Perrino had the bankroll of a major label at his fingertips this time around. While distribution of this disc to stores is limited geographically, I HIGHLY recommend hopping over to the Lunch Records web site at www.lunchrecords.com and getting yourself a copy of War Chords. Great songwriting, great vocals, great lyrics: what more could you ask for? Aaron Perrino sounds as though he'll escape the ghost of his old band and find himself in something great with this new one. If this EP is just a taste, then I'm starving for the full-length coming this fall. [www.dear-leader.com]