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NEWBORN DRIVING
(Icarus Bob Records)
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"Put It to Ya," the opening track of Spanish for 100’s debut album, at once tells us that the band have engaging hooks and a talented lead singer. Although they hail from Seattle, frontman Corey Passons boasts a solid, bright voice tinged with a countryish nasal twang that recalls Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock or Neil Young on uppers. It’s too bad that Passons doesn’t take similar risks with his upper register on the rest of the album — pushing his voice into the stratosphere for an a cappella break on "Put It to Ya," he achieves an effect that’s downright chilling. Spanish for 100 already have a knack for those hooks, and almost every song on Newborn Driving has a memorable guitar line. With its mountain of dissonance, "Mood in the Clouds" is the band’s nod to the Pixies, and though Passons’s abrupt shift to an artless speaking voice à la Stephen Malkmus is an odd fit for the rest of the album, it makes for one of the better tracks. In fact, the CD could use more of these idiosyncrasies. "Come Rain or Shine" and "Five Hours In" start as energetic, upbeat tunes, but the hooks and vocals soon give way to aimless guitar meandering that turns them into uninspired improvisations.
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