Culture Vultures

Orson's creative path goes on

The American rock band Orson was formed in 1999 and consists of vocalist Jason Pebworth, guitarist George Astasio, guitarist and vocalist Kevin Roentgen, bassist Johnny Lonely and drummer Chris Cano. Although the members of the band are from Hollywood, California, they have preferred the British audience to appreciate their music, and are signed to Murcury Records. Orson's debut album Bright Idea released last year became platinum in the selling status, and the single No Tomorrow made the band popular on both sides of the Atlantic. This year the sophomore effort Culture Vultures has seen the light of the day. Compared to the first album the record has a more pop music sounding, and the lyrics have more funny moments. All the professionally made guitar hooks please on Culture Vultures, and the songs are as catchy as before. Even if some of the audience were more impressed by the debut album, on the whole, the new one has become a worthy continuation of Orson's career, and the band's creative path goes on.

Varied and mostly optimistic Culture Vultures

The main stake on Culture Vultures is made at the great tunes for the lyrics are mostly quite simple and at times are aimed at making the listeners smile. The basic attitude of the album is that of a wild party, for Orson think itself real specialist in this area. The opening up-tempo and melodious track Radio reveals the band's attitude to the modern music, and the album's single Ain't No Party pleases with a contagious rhythm and a really catchy tune. Drums prevail on a typical rock-n-roll composition Broken Watch, whereas Contortionist pleases with marvelous guitar hooks and unusual melody, framed in an impressive arrangement. A harder song Debbie's Gone is refined with the falsetto elements in the vocals, and a calmer track Where You Are Tonight is one of the most lyrically brilliant and serious on the record. A mid-tempo song Little Miss Lost And Found is sure to become one of your favorites due to a great melody and another case of good text. A complicated composition Northern Girl pleases with an amazing guitar solo and a nice retro flavor, and the album closer Everybody is based on the contrast between the hard refrain and a melodious couplet. Varied and mostly optimistic Culture Vultures will become a good accompaniment for a cheerful party with a company of your friends.

The atmosphere of live performances

As often as not a sophomore effort is different from the debut as a collective gets some new ideas or producers decide it necessary to change the direction. Nevertheless, with its second work Orson has not taken risks and did not try any experiments for the debut album has shown the guys that the audience has liked the material consisting of simple, catchy and well performed songs. At the same time Culture Vultures has proved to be rather spontaneous for it has been recorded quite quickly, and all the basic ideas came to the band members already at the studio. One of the concepts while creating Culture Vultures was to render the atmosphere of Orson's live performances therefore the guys gave full swing to their instruments, even improvising a little bit at times. Although many classifying their music as pop rock, the significant part of the album consists of rather hard tracks, that can be scarcely referred to pop music, and only the fact that the songs are melodious smoothes their apprehension. It would be wrong to say that Culture Vultures is dramatically different from its predecessor, and it is probably only for the better as Orson still has an opportunity to realize its potentials in its entirety.