After already making it big once, Kenneth Vasoli started anew with hopes of making it big a second time. Person L’s second full-length album, The Positives, further distinguishes the band from Vasoli’s former band, The Starting Line. Unfortunately, it does little to distinguish them from everyone else.
In 2008, after nearly 10 years spent releasing three albums and touring extensively, Vasoli and The Starting Line decided to take an indefinite break. The hiatus offered Vasoli a chance to explore different musical styles with then side project Person L. Their 2008 debut Initial found Vasoli forging a new niche, experimenting with chunkier guitars and aggressive vocals.
This album follows stride and shows some maturation in style and song writing from the somewhat unpolished debut album Initial, but its apparent intended rawness often proves more distracting than refreshing. Vasoli’s vocal work, which at times borders on screaming, seems to send the redundant message that Person L is far removed from the pop-punk that listeners have come to expect from him. Such overreaching is evident on tracks such as “Changed Man,” where minimal instrumentation forces a heavy reliance on brash vocals that are too much to keep a listener’s interest.
Elsewhere, the album’s stripped-down, garage-rock feel highlights the band’s ambition but makes for an album that is often disjointed and abrasive. Even the early statement track “Goodness Gracious,” for all its upside, is just brash with a side of harsh. The same can be said for a handful of other tracks which, if played at level seven with sharpened instrumentation instead of a bombastic 10, would have made for a more fluid album.
Despite the album’s shortcomings, its title suggests there’s much to be optimistic about. The Positives seems to follow a bookends format with a strong start and an even stronger finish, sandwiching a collection of oh-so-close tracks. The opener, “Hole in the Fence,” sets an early and impressive tone with guitar and percussion, garnering worthy comparisons to the band Explosions in the Sky. Other tracks sustain the energy with tight creative percussion, and though both contain elements that are distinctly Person L, tight guitar on “Good Days” reeks of Counterfit, and everything about the title track “The Positives” screams Minus the Bear. Even toward its close, the album’s standout track “Untitled,” so named on account of its simple repetitive nature, closely resembles Little Brazil.
It’s not the similarities that detract from The Positives. Given the increasing number of bands crowding the independent music scene, who can really escape them? The album suffers when the tracks that sound distinctly Person L are so in-your-face that they’re hard to listen to and when those that really show promise meld so seamlessly with what’s been done by similar artists.
