KelleReviews, The Music Review Division of Jeff Keller Creative is pleased to introduce you to “Expectations” from new Michigan-based band, The Drive Home. For any of you marketing creatives out there lucky enough to still be working for an agency or in-house team that uses original tracks for your broadcast or social executions, feel free to give The Drive Home a listen by clicking the YouTube link below. And now, on to the review…
Stay silent, remain stoic and keep it to yourself. These strategies may seem like the path of least emotional resistance – and all the rage from the throngs of Red Pill influencers on YouTube. But the cost of keeping quiet and the pain that’s exacted when the bill comes due is explored in “Expectations”, the newest release from Michigan trio, The Drive Home.
It’s always good to resist the urge to classify a band by placing them within a genre. But, as they say, resistance is futile. And The Drive Home exist solidly within the arc of the power-pop/emo solar system. What sets the band apart is their maturity. The experience of living deep into their thirties before trying to express pain, regret, angst and all of those other wonderful pieces of life baggage, just rings clearer and truer when you’ve got some wear on the tires.
“Expectations” captures the hinge moment when a breakup is all but inevitable. Singer Sean Zelda paints a picture of an agonizingly silent drive home when the desire to just get it out and over with no longer can be restrained.
“Say the words/Make it hurt/Light a match and watch it burn/All this time we’re staying silent”
We get the message from Zelda’s lyrics that there was some serious hope for this now torched relationship. Believe it or not, dudes have a biological clock too. And The Drive Home is letting us know that every relationship that crashes and burns is one step closer to a life that may turn out to be permanently lonely. You just become more aware of it when you can remember Razr flip phones and the Seinfeld finale.
So now that we’ve got the painful poetry out of the way, let’s discuss the music. “Expectations” starts simple and stripped down. But after the intro, Zelda along with the rhythm section of drummer Austin West and Bassist Sean Daly revs itself into a tasty tumble of power chords and back beats that sonically equals the story being told. The chords are unexpected, intricate and almost verge into the land of prog. (This is a compliment coming from a nerd who was raised on King Crimson, E.L.P. and Rush.)
The tightness of The Drive Home’s hooks leaves you with the feeling you’re listening to real friends here. Not three separate musicians on a zoom link relying on the ones and zeros of a ProTools work station. This makes sense given the fact that their musical lineage goes all the way back to the beginning of Troy’s We Came as Romans in 2005.
Bottom line: I’m happy to say that “Expectations” has me expecting more great songs from The Drive Home with new releases from the trio every few weeks. If you’d like to catch them live, they’ll be at The Old Miami, 3930 Cass in Detroit this Friday, September 19th.