LEEVES, THE:
Self-titled: CD
Digging in to Greensboro, North Carolina’s the Leeves first full-length for the first time left me scratching my head. What’s going on here? As each track passed, I had to keep looking at the disc to make sure it was the same one. This stuff is seriously all over the place, but not necessarily in a bad way. To break it down, the band does seem to have at least a few identifiable personalities: Some tracks have a Clash-like reggae feel, while others have a sound that I can only describe as Against Me with the Cure’s Robert Smith singing. Still, other songs reveal a serious party-rock influence while others are blues-tinged. The disc was recorded over the course of a few years, which certainly accounts for some of the continuity issues of the disc. And man, is this disc long. Clocking in at seventy-seven minutes, I found I dug it more when broken down into smaller, easier to digest doses. –Garrett Barnwell (theleeves.bandcamp.com)