Long Island’s Sir Cadian Rhythm, a rock, jazz, pop quintet, released earlier this month a self-titled EP of five tracks. The band consists of musical theater performers, Juilliard graduates, music teachers, award-winning jazz band performers, and prolific poets, each having different musical backgrounds and styles that range from progressive rock, funk and metal to pop, classical and jazz music. This mixture allows Jack Weppler (vocals), Alex Laudani (guitar), Richard Cluxton (bass), Keith Miller (drums), and Matthew Carlin (keyboard) to create an interesting blend of sounds.

The mid tempo pop rock opener, “Flood of XIV”, bears definite alternative rock influenced. It sounds quite familiar—the melody is reminiscent of well-known bands such as Maroon 5, while Weppler’s vocals are reminiscent Fall Out Boys’ Patrick Stump on their slower tempo material. Lead mainly by guitars with strong drum support, it is an uplifting, almost anthemic track that has quite a few different sounding moments that are neatly tied together. “Ouroboros” is another alternative rock influenced track on Sir Cadian Rhythm. Starting light, the track builds up, layer by layer, with the help of the electric guitar and the drums. The vocals are distorted, adding to the level of angst already reflected in the melody and the lyrics. The song also captures the listener’s attention through a second long distortion at a couple of pivotal moments in the track.

The dynamic, foot-stompic quality of “Holly’s On Fire” makes it the most memorable track of the album. It’s led by a modern sounding big band vibrant guitars, enthusiastic horns, a timid but omnipresent piano, and energetic drums. This radio friendly track reflects some serious instrumental talent—the electric guitar shines through particularly thanks in part to a solo—and is enthusiastic in the unique way that jazz rock tracks can be. A remake of Back to the Future could feature this as the song that Marty McFly plays at his parents’ high school prom.

In contract, “Run Around Town” and “Villian Fear”, while being good tracks, seem underproduced, although to be fair, they aren’t. The latter is a rock track featuring great drumming and a limited number of layers. It’s much more straightforward in the genre it encompasses and reinforced the impression one has had up to now of the quality of the band’s talent but it can also leave listeners, now used to Sir Cadian Rhythm’s more intricate tracks, vaguely dissatisfied. Similarly, “Villian Fear” is a beautiful ballad that closes off the EP on a much slower note. It’s simplicity allows for the listener to appreciate even more the instrumentation—especially the horns near the end of the song—but but again it comes as a sharp contract to the first three tracks of the EP. Perhaps a full album with more songs would make these two fit in more seamlessly.

Sir Cadian Rhythm is a great EP welcome to the indie scene a new band with a lot of potential. More information about them is available on their official website, and their music is available for streaming on
Bandcamp.

Pictures provided by Independent Music Promotions.

First published on Blogcritics.