On the Record: The Music

Artist : The Music
Album : Welcome to The North (EMI)

Imagine Led Zeppelin (the legendary group's watered-down version, of course) fronted by Rush's Geedy Lee and you get The Music's Welcome to The North.

The Led Zep comparison is inevitable here. As their name suggests, this quartet from Leeds, England, carries Zeppelin's swagger and signature high-pitch vocals cutting through the mesh of reedy guitars.

I Need Love and Bleed from Within are based solidly on tribal drums taken from Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. Incidentally, Robert Harvey's vocal register resembles that of the Rush vocalist than that of Robert Plant.

The only thing that stands out between The Music and Led Zep is the use of electronica beats, which gives them a modern tone in the same vein as the Stone Roses.

Despite this, going through the tracks on North is like listening to extended remakes of Led Zep's annals.

Track after track flows without much to say and all hooks seem wasted. -- M. Taufiqurrahman