Caputo – A Fondness For Hometown Scars

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Suburban Records
Produced by Keith Caputo

Life of Agony front-man Keith Caputo treads a more varied path with his solo career than his parent band do, and with A Fondness For Hometown Scars he has produced his finest moment as a solo artist.

Caputo varies the styles on this record greatly from track to track, and is reasonably convincing with all of them. One of the dominant styles is a Coldplay/Radiohead type of melancholic softness highlighted with strings or piano, or a clean guitar like the main riff to In December.

Then, in a complete change of direction, Troubles Down comes straight out of the Velvet Revolver play-book. Even Caputo’s vocals take on the mannerisms of Scott Weiland here over a Slash-esque rock riff. Unfortunately this is the only track of this kind until Devil’s Pride several tracks later and, in truth, the middle part of the disc could have done with something else like this to break up the otherwise downbeat, piano-led sadness.

The first half of Nothing To Lose is very soft, and strangely disjointed, but the second half is a huge improvement and then there are three very similar, equally depressing songs which start to drift into the background. The most uninteresting of these is Got Monsters which, as well as being too close in style and melody to the previous two tracks, is also very light on lyrics and changes in tune.

Son of A Gun is a little more lively thanks to its bouncy bass line and Devil’s Pride goes back to the Velvet Revolver feel but with a more melancholic vocal in the verses and a distorted chorus. Closing out the last song proper is Bleed For Something Beautiful which unfortunately is the albums lowest point before a wonderful instrumental to close in Society’s Deep Sleep.

A Fondness For Hometown Scars is almost perfect. The lull in the middle is all that lets it down and another rock song in place of Got Monsters, slotted between Sad Eyed Lady and Silver Candy would have been all that was needed to rectify that. This is easily Keith’s best solo effort to date.

“ melancholic softness ”

Tracklist: Crawling / In December / Troubles Down / In This life / Nothing To Lose / Sad Eyed Lady / Silver Candy / Got Monsters / Son of A Gun / Devil’s Pride / Bleed For Something Beautiful / Society’s Deep Sleep

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Non-metal, Caputo