Coming off his 2016 concept album
The Story of Fred Short
,
Marco Benevento
offers a slightly more straightforward if no less inventive pop effort,
Let It Slide
. Produced with
Leon Fields & the Expressions
' bandmember
Leon Michels
(who has also worked on such disparate recording projects as
Norah Jones
Lady Wray
, and his own
El Michels Affair
),
finds
Benevento
offering songs that straddle the lines between arty indie pop, '70s soft rock, and psychedelic soul. A Berklee College of Music grad with a jazz and creative music background,
has a knack for balancing memorable chorus hooks with a tactile, deeply textured, and analog-brand of instrumentation. He and
Michels
clearly share a love of old-school rock, soul, R&B, and sundry other vinyl-era aesthetics. Together they bring all of these evocative sounds to bear on
. Many of these songs feature fuzzy dub-style basslines pushed forward in the mix, ringing electric guitar lines, refracted analog drum grooves, and a slurry of vintage-sounding organs and keyboards. Tracks like "Solid Gold," "Baby Don't Make Me Want," and "Say It's All the Same," are buoyant anthems recorded with a lo-fi, roomy aesthetic that brings to mind '90s
Beck
. Elsewhere, "Lorraine" evokes the dreamy, singer/songwriter style of
Todd Rundgren
. There are also a handful of instrumental tracks here, including the three "Gaffiano" interludes that sound like outtakes from a '70s Italian horror movie soundtrack. Similarly, cuts like "Oh Baby Can't You See" and "Nature's Change," with its extended organ solo, sound like unearthed psych rock classics. ~ Matt Collar