Written by: DR on 20=Dec-2011
Supposedly singing since before she could even speak, Basia Lyjak has been releasing music as a solo artist since 2002, but involved with music in general a lot longer. It wasn't until 2007, though, that she started to build something like a reputation in her homeland Canada by consistently releasing singles and touring. It is those singles that "Basia: The Complete Collection" is comprised of, as they attempt to show her progression as a solo artist.
Lyjak fits comfortably into the image of 'rock n roll'. Her influences lie in the women of 70s/80s rock, such as Blondie and Pat Benetar, and she is generally going for the slightly bad-ass, attitude-driven persona in her music, which is ultimately sold with generic, though 'hook-laden', radio-rock music akin to Evanescence and Automatic Loveletter. She is backed by former members of Three Days Grace and Crash Karma, Nelly Furtado's band, and Headstones. Aside from the odd country endeavour "Sunshine", this collection is mostly made up of turn-of-the-century watered down nu-metal/post-grunge/whatever rock that apparently still sells a lot in North America.
You can hear the progression in quality, in the sense that you can tell which songs are old and bland and which are from 2011 and show an improvement and are actually not that bad, but there is almost no progression in sound. Basia has spent the years, so far, trying to refine her take on radio-rock, and the only song which is worth repeating is "Sick N Tired", which has a pretty sweet attention-perking opening riff and a solid chorus that could stick in the minds of listeners.
So, as you could probably guess, Basia seems to want to become the next big female mainstream rock star. She has the voice to become that, yes, but ultimately the only way that is realistically going to happen is if she gets signed to a major label that has the financial clout to give her the push needed, because, based on these songs, she lacks the song-writing ability to actually make it 'big' on her own.
"Sick N Tired" is definitely a step in the right direction, but one has to wonder if she'll capitalize on that momentum and actually write an album, rather than just singles that probably make no impact whatsoever.
Download: Sick N Tired For The Fans of: Automatic Loveletter, Pat Benetar, Blondie, Evanescence Release Date 2011 - Self-Released
Link to article: http://www.rockfreaks.net/albums/4507
Comments