Sand Road
Demo
by Michael Klimovich       

               Walking down the hall, I heard acoustic guitar. I kept walking, but curiosity grabbed my wrist and made it knock on the door.  I said, “Hi,” and expressed my interest.  The guy said he had a band and threw me a demo.  The CD read Sand Road-A Longer Mile; not very revealing.  It could just be another pop punk band with a cute street name for a title, but hopefully my first impressions would be mistaken.

                    A combination of classic rock, blues, and pop, Demographix Magazine recently featured Sand Road, from East Brunswick, NJ. They also won an Asbury Music Award for “Best Young Band,” and premiered on Ramapo’s Scott Stanchak Reality TV show.  That’s a decent reputation, but I don’t know how they got it.

            The first few seconds of the album promises a good time, something happy to listen to on a summer drive.  Then the singer comes in with the vocal texture of sand paper and a style like pre-adolescent whining ¾ not the ride I expected.

Track four opens with a nice piano intro.  Say you die.  Ascending to heaven, this upbeat, relaxing, groove tune might make appropriate background for that trip.  But as soon as that guy gets the nerve to start singing, walls of fire burst around you when God hears the obscenities you uncontrollably shouted.  Eternity in hell might suck, but you can smile as you descend, knowing that more creative kinds of torture than Sand Road must exist there. 

These guys give the impression that their only classic rock influences were their parents’ mediocre jam bands.  Weak, lacking in dynamics, and monotonous as a long winding road, the music drags.  The least they could do is change their name to something that I couldn’t so artfully use against them.