Album Review: Valencia - We All Need A Reason To Believe
Valencia are a rock/pop-punk band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and have just released their second album, 'We All Need A Reason To Believe' . The band is made up of Shane Henderson on vocals, on guitars are JD Perry and Brenden Walter, bass duties are taken up by George Ciukurescu and Maxim Soria is on drums. 'We All Need A Reason To Believe' is the band's first release since moving to Columbia Records from I Surrender and the band's first album in nearly 3 years. The record begins with 'Better Be Prepared' starts off a nice steady pace before kicking into a catchy chorus. This is followed up with 'Holiday', which the album's title comes from and see's Henderson searching for someway of getting away. 'Where Did You Go?' consists of a good beat and breakdown with melodic female backing vocals.
The start of 'Carry On' reminds me of an old Ben Folds Five song before it breaks into a rock-type ballad with an epic feeling chorus. 'Safe To Say' has a nice punk-esqe singalong, which sounds very familar to Hit The Light's recent 'Stay Out'. For The Starting Line and Person L fans, Kenny Vasoli makes a guest appearence on 'Listen Up', which makes a nice break from Henderson's vocals but by this point the album seems to flow and many songs sound to similar to one another, with the penultimate track, 'The Good Life' stopping this idea.
Overall the follow up to 2005's 'This Is Could Be A Possibility' is a good enjoyable record with well-crafted pop-rock songs but at times it is difficult to tell the difference between some songs. However it is an improvement on the band's latter album and will sure bring them more fans in the near-future.
7/10
Links: Official Site
Myspace
For Fans of: Hit The Lights and The Starting Line
