(Soft Drive/New West)

www.softdriverecords.com

www.newwestrecords.com

The air cloaking the Los Angeles indie scene must be stifling; how else to explain this quartet taking nearly a decade to make its official long-playing debut? Or perhaps it's simply a matter of the Color Turning wisely opting to hone their chops and develop their sound - and then let fortune take its course. Indeed, Stone Temple Pilots/Velvet Revolver frontman plucked the group from virtual obscurity for his fledgling imprint Soft Drive, and whether or not your image of Weiland jibes with your notion of what makes a good talent scout, there's no question the dude's demonstrated plenty of commercial potential (and follow-through) over the years, personal demons be damned.

Yet though Color Turning may suddenly have a leg up on its modern-rock peers, it also has an evocative, eclectic approach that should help set it apart from the pack, and that counts for a lot in this competitive business. Following the ambient-tinged guitar/piano opening track "Slow As Passing Cars" the group catapults into the first of several anthems that nail down its core Britpop-influenced sound: "Where the Sky Ends" is all shimmering fretwork, urgently peripatetic percussion and yearning, keening vox. A few songs later there's the undulating, part-funky/part-atmospheric "Me Versus You," which deftly employs shifting dynamics to build through a series of mini-crescendos. And the strummy, churning "Awake," coming near album's end, similarly proves its mettle as a potential pre-encore concert closer.

This is not to say the group is wholly unique (and one doesn't imagine a superstar like Weiland signing up a bunch of loose-cannon mavericks anyway). The Coldplay/U2 template seems overly welded into place on a number of tracks, for example the Edge-like arpeggios in the aforementioned "Where the Sky Ends" and echoes of Chris Martin's overwrought vocal style in "Phantom Parade" and "Doppelganger." And - speaking of vocals - it sounds like there's an awful lot of Auto-Tune being deployed on the album; in contemporary commercial pop Auto-Tune may be commonplace, but ultimately it will serve to permanently date a record just like the newly-emerging digital reverb of the mid ‘80s wound up dating a lot of records in the past.

Those caveats noted, let's split the difference and give this undeniably talented band its due: solid songwriting and passionate performances can carry you a long way, hopefully to the next stage of artistic development. There's something sincere and authentic about the Color Turning that makes you want to root for them.

Standout Tracks: "Where the Sky Ends," "Awake" FRED MILLS