After the break up for South Florida
mainstays Wyld Fly, Alex Di Leo didn’t lay fallow. The results of the interim
since their dissolution are fully heard on his debut solo release So We Go.
This six song EP is a collection focused, in equal parts, on the basic elements
that make a great pop song along with a strongly individualistic bent that
twists his obvious influences in unexpected directions. Di Leo has clearly
listened long and hard to modern acts like Fleet Foxes, Coldplay, and others of
that ilk, but he’s learned different lessons than most from the attention paid.
The songs on So We Go bristle with youthful energy and confidence, but the
instincts shaping the EP’s art belong to a much more developed sensibility. Di
Leo wants to impress us with So We Go and, by that measure; the release is a
resounding success.
Di Leo bravely starts things off with
the title song. It’s a dramatic, expertly plotted piece of musical theater
thanks to Di Leo’s eye for expansive sonic textures. Even though the songs
rarely exceed four minutes in length, they feel much wider, bigger. Di Leo
generates impressive energy on the EP’s second song “Making It Easier”, but the
real highlight of this track and others cut from the same cloth is the
skillfulness with which he manipulates emotion through movement in the music
and seesawing back and forth from a full-on musical attack to passages much
more lean and stripped back. This approach reaches one of its peaks with the
third track “Reason”. There is a fair amount of Di Leo’s heart-stirring pop
theatrics rising to the fore here, but it’s the sincerity and individuality of
the piece that truly makes the deepest impact.
Another of the EP’s peak moments
arrives with the song “When We First Met”. It’s hoary but dependable subject
matter for a pop song, forever resonate, but Di Leo expresses his narrative in
language all his own and the sonic vocabulary has a totally modern slant that
will, nonetheless, appeal to older listeners as well. Di Leo’s songwriting does
a superb job of alternating dramatic and muted sections on the EP’s penultimate
song “I’ve Been Waiting”. The positive point of view dominating the lyrical
content continues here, but like elsewhere, it’s never a Pollyanna interpretation
of adult life. Instead, songs like this underline the bittersweet interludes we
all face while promising ultimate happiness and/or resolution. The EP’s closing
number “Waking Up” is the crown jewel in So We Go’s crown. It’s almost
classical in its ambitions despite the relatively mundane running time and has
a bevy of layers, both lyrically and musically, for listeners to explore. Di
Leo could have scarcely concocted a better closer and So We Go would have
strained mightily to be any better than it is. This is as fine of a debut as
you’ll hear this year and the future is boundless for Alex Di Leo’s musical
future.
9 out of 10 stars.
William Elgin III
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