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Offroad

Lost & Found

Written by: PP on 11/01/2011 14:08:15

Offroad are a Dutch rock band who've been together for about three years before releasing their debut album "Lost & Found" in September last year. They play very straight-forward rock and roll with slight hints of post-grunge in their singer's scratchy vocals, resembling at least the following bands: Smokesuit (and a bunch of other Finnish small-scale rock bands), The Stradlins (though less punk than these Danes), and the uncompromising rock of Odense, Denmark based Wrong Side of Vegas. They also share a great deal in common with a mainstream rock band whose name I just can't get into my head despite having thought about it for a few days now, maybe you guys can help me out in the comments.

Anyway, the formula is very simple, given how Offroad's approach to the genre is to play no-frills, simplistic, melody-based rock from start to finish. Songs like "Routine" and "Fallen Empire" are rather catchy, or they could be, but the CD (or my copy, at least) suffers from terrible, terrible mixing. The sound is incredibly quiet even as I crank up my volume to several multiples of what is normal for all the other bands in my MediaMonkey library. It creates a problem specifically because of the genre Offroad play in. Rock music is supposed to sound rowdy, aggressive, loud, etc, but it's just not possible to get such vibes when everything sound so quiet in the mix. You can tell the guitars were buzzing from rough edges and the vocalist's scratchy croon was excellent when the band were recording in the studio, but since then something has gone wrong, and as a result, "Lost & Found" comes across as less of an album than it really should be. Melodies are good, production is really, really off, and that's a shame.

Download: Routine, Fallen Empire
For the fans of: Smokesuit, The Stradlins, Wrong Side Of Vegas
Listen: Myspace

Release date 10.09.2010
Self-Released