Gold Against The Soul - Patagonia

Hear The Track Here

It never ceases to amaze me how many people panic at the last minute, change either the mix or the song before I get my sticky hands on it. Gold Against The Soul PM'd me a while ago saying that he had a new mix of this track and would I review that instead? Good job the review was still a way away and it does happen with great regularity so what the hey. Gold Against The Soul is a new name to me, and Soundclick too I suspect, There are only two tracks the website presently, this one and Drive - which I noticed had already been a Soundclick Alternative Number One.

Not bad if ya can get it.

Patagonia (nothing whatsover to do with the area of the same name apparently) is - on the face of it - a general moan about life, and in a fairly standard fashion. Put it like this, it made me go and listen to Drive to see if it deserved that #1, and in its own way, I guess it does but that doesn't work for Patagonia. The musical line up is fairly basic, drums, bass, guitar and vocals but this is supposed to be alternative isn't it? Not this alternative is my honest opinion. As a singer, John Spomer, works in much the same register as (say) Thomas J Marchant and the same kinda/sorta musical direction.

At first, I thought what I was hearing was pretty much a live take, but continued plays just showed it was a raw sound to begin with. Structurally, you will have heard something like this before. I hear inconsistencies in both vocals and bass tuning but I most definitely would AND it has become a trademark of most 'home produced' Alternative. While it won't take the world by storm, John can certainly take comfort in Drive and the time and effort in getting this to sound right. For my money, though, it doesn't really get to the point quick enough and could probably do to lose a minute or so.

Shows promise though, even so