Luke Buda | Vesuvius
Known best as one of the front men for The Phoenix Foundation, Luke Buda has released his second full-length solo effort, Vesuvius, and a quietly ambitious one it is too.
Departing quite dramatically from the synth-heavy textured sound of 2006′s Special Surprise, Vesuvius is a delicious 70s influenced pop experience which (again unlike Special Surprise) functions well as a full-length album.
It is not an album that can be consumed at a frenetic pace. It is a journey, complete with shifting moods, songs which rotate as stand-out favourites, and is held together by an underlying intelligence and musical coherence.
The album wears its musical influences on its sleeve. Tracks like The Answer’s Always Yes is an awesome, rollicking, Wilco-esque jam complete with banjo strumming. The killer closing track Atlas builds on the banjo to create a dense arrangement of instruments, the end result being that you immediately want to start listening to the album from the beginning again.
Like many a full-length album, Vesuvius is by no means perfect. A couple of the tracks do fall a bit flat (I’ll let you decide on your own hits and misses), but this functions to make the rest of the album seem even better. Definitely an album worth many repeat listens.
