TREMOLO
Love is the Greatest Revenge
Flagship Recordings 2005
www.tremolomusic.net

Sample it here

What’s the 4-1-1?
The first full-length album from the Oakland, California based group headed by singer-songwriter Justin Dillon.

Genre
Rock

The Good
The strength here is the level of Dillon’s songwriting. He has the chops, period. I didn’t know what to expect when I popped this disc in the CD player, but what I got was one heck of an album. Dillon has a great sense of melody and he shows it off with almost every song. His voice is pretty decent, though it can go a bit too high in the vocal register at times. The tracks on the album consist mostly of mid tempo or up tempo songs with a couple of ballads thrown in as well.

“We Are The New Black” reminds me a bit of the Cheap Trick song “Gonna Raise Hell.” I love the melody that is woven into the music and there are quite a few songs I could see being played on the radio beyond the first single “Can You Feel It Now.” You can hear that track online at their website. He’s got a great band behind him including drummer Steve Bowman from Counting Crows and Jane’s Addiction keyboardist Kris Pooley.

Three different guitarists handle the duties here: Max Butler (Chuck Prophet), Julian Coryell (Aimee Mann) and Dino Meneghin (Liz Phair). They take his songs and turn them into some of the most invigorating music this year. While I really liked 11 out of the 12 songs, there are four that really stand out to me. They are “Evil Twin”, “Baby Blue”, “Down To Beautiful” and the very high energy track “You Were Born For This.”

The Bad
The opening track “New Eyes For A New World” is a pretty good song that gets sort of tainted by the level of repetition in the chorus. I found “Promise Ring” to be very slow and ponderous. I didn’t care for the vocal delivery, it went too high for my own personal taste.

The Verdict
Well, color me surprised once more. I really liked this album. It’s got a lot of what I like to listen to for rock and roll. If you like well-crafted songs with great music and melody, you just might want to check out Tremolo when it hits your store shelves.

Did You Know?
Justin Dillon will turn over 50 percent of the any royalties due to the band into a benevolence trust called called the Love > Revenge Fund. The fans of the band decide via voting and message forums online where the money will end up being donated.

Rating: out of 5

-- Jay Roberts