Floater
Stone by Stone
Elemental / In Music We Trust
Let’s go back. Back to a time when guys with long hair and backwards caps were normal and wearing flannel meant that you didn’t have to bathe… ever. Back to when Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were taking over like Kevin Federline’s offspring. Floater went through all of that and are still making killer rock albums as evidenced by their 8th album, Stone by Stone.
The opener “An Apology” brings the listener directly into Floater’s world of optimistic pessimism and take-you-out-behind-the-shed-and-give-‘em-an-audio-whippin’-worth-rememberin’ (thanks to Tony Hatcher for that one). With lines like “My hands are strong from building these gallows” and “I could show you no merciful side again/ I could just hold you/ Wouldn’t that be nice?” Floater shows, in just the first three minutes, that they write smart, emotional and sometimes intentionally ambiguous lyrics to go along with their powerful percussive sound.
That sound is best captured in “Helping Hands,” where a Pearl Jam-esque guitar riff is coupled with a driving rhythm, forcing the lyrics into the listener’s cranium and making his/her head nod.
Vocalist Robert Wynia evokes Eddie Vedder’s passionate vocal delivery while occasionally ripping out a Chris Cornell-esque primal scream as he does on “My Burden.”
Floater has been around for 13 years and show no signs of slowing down. The lineup has never changed. It has always been Wynia, Peter Cornett on drums and Dave Amador on all guitars for eight albums, including two live discs that quickly sold out. A mountain of talent, Floater may not have hit mainstream radio as some of their counterparts did, but they have proven that they can write a song as good if not better than the others and that they can stick together long enough to continue to entertain with sold out shows.
Floater: http://www.floatermusic.com
