Album Review: Robledo - Wanted Man

There are so many new bands coming out every year, sometimes it's hard to keep them all straight. It's even harder when a lot of the people involved move straight into doing other projects as well, which only adds to the confusion. What we're here to discuss today is the first solo album from James Robledo, who is the frontman of the band Sinner's Blood. They have only released one album, which was very good, and already he's on to making a solo album. I'm not sure what that says about the band's future, but that's not what we're here to talk about.

"Wanted Man" sees James playing highly melodic rock, which you would expect from an album penned by Alessandro Del Vecchio. After all, this is at least the sixth album I have come across this year alone that he has written. So you know what the record is going to sound like before you play it, which can be a good thing. It also doesn't sound that dissimilar from Sinner's Blood themselves, which makes me question what the need for a solo album is.

There are natural comparisons to make between this album and some of the others doing the exact same thing. Chief among them would be the Sunstorm album form earlier this year. Ronnie Romero's voice shares similarities in tone to James', and the music is the same slightly heavier melodic rock. Frankly, they could easily be interchanged without missing much of a beat. The big difference, to me, is how free and easy James' vocals sound compared to Ronnie. He isn't straining to add that little bit of rock n roll grit to his voice, which lets the melodies breathe a little more. It also helps that his voice layers beautifully, building huge swaths of vocals to power the choruses.

If we have established James is a fantastic singer, what do we make of the songs he had been given? That's a mixed bag. There are some really good songs here, like the expansive "Dreams Deceive", while songs like "Shelter From Pain" are rather generic. The album follows the blueprint of so many others, so there is very little about these songs that stands apart from Sunstorm's album, or Brother Against Brother, or several other albums.

And that's the big problem. Taken on its own, "Wanted Man" is a fine and solid album of melodic rock with some great vocals. However, I've already heard this style, written by the same pen, sung by voices of a similar tone, multiple times just this year. If you ask me what makes this different than those other two records, there isn't an answer. They meld into one sound, and almost come across like three chapters of a trilogy. And as we should know by now, anything that long needs to be trimmed. The same is true of these records. Three of them is just too much of the same thing, again and again, until even the good songs start to echo one another.

There's also one other point I have to make; "The Mirror Star" by Sinner's Blood is better than this album, so I sort of wish James would have just made another album with them instead. Sometimes the spotlight doesn't shine where you think it does, nor does it show what you intend.