“Overload” by Chris Luciani

By Floyd Bernard.

I’ve always thought of an EP as being like an appetizer that precedes the entrée, which in this comparison would be a full length album. It’s a first course meant to tide you over while you wait for the second course to be prepared and served. In many ways it may be thought of as a moveable feast in the musician’s discography. In other words, what an artist releases on their first EP stays with them throughout their careers.

Chris Luciani (www.chrisluciani.com) brings to the table “Overload”, his premier EP, and it’s served up piping hot. The title tune is a tense tightrope walk that begins with clipped staccato eighth notes on the guitar. Before the end of the second beat of the first verse he begins singing “I look back on all the things I’ve done/They are stacked up, all and all one by one/And I let her in before I can take this chance/But I need to find myself now, I can’t be someone else”. Then from there the intensity of the track grows and grows into a chorusing crescendo.

In addition to the heartfelt wordplay Luciani offers some nice and unexpected melodic twists in his compositions. Just when you think you know his next move he dodges and parries the direction of the tunes he comes up with the deftness of a sword wielding Musketeer. The band that backs him on “Overload” keeps the tracks tight without sucking the soul from the recorded performances. It’s not always a perfect balance, but then again, can you tell me what is?

With that being said it still raises the bar pretty high for this musician to meet and/or exceed the level he’s achieved on his EP. It will be interesting to see if the sophomore release Chris comes up with will do this. For most recording artists the album that follows can make or break the deal. That’s a load of pressure he has to handle so we’ll just have to wait to hear where he takes it from here.