Alex Lopez – Retro Revival
Maremil Music
11 Tracks – 41 minutes
Alex Lopez was born in the heartland of rock & roll, Cleveland, Ohio. Growing up, he first learned to play the piano, but the rise of the guitar-driven rock acts of the 60’s and 70’s caused him to shift to the guitar. Amidst a move to Florida to attend college, he played in rock bands where he fronted a band, Reminiscion. He released his first solo album, Back Bedroom Blues in 2013, which found him playing all the instruments on the album. He formed the full band, now called the Xpress (aka ALX), which recorded their debut album, Is It a Lie, in 2015. The current band includes Alex on guitar and vocals, England’s Steve Roberts on bass, and Japan’s Kana Leimbach on drums on eleven original songs on Alex’s eighth album release.
The album opens with the rocking, needful “One More Time” to love you before I leave this town” and noting “If I don’t get to love you. my life’s a mess”. He then declares “Your Lovin” “is bad news” and tells her, “The way you treat me baby you keep me in such pain”. In a mournful lament he explains “When I Sing the Blues” “you hurt me baby, I can’t take no more of that” as his guitar cries alongside of his vocals.
On “Here I Am” he casts a cynical eye to life today citing “Everybody’s forgotten what they call the golden rule” and noting “Got no way to earn my pay. Fading away, somebody help me”. He proclaims, “What the World Needs Now” is “A little bit of loving, a little bit of hope, a little bit of patience, find some way to cope”. “A little understanding, a little bit of calm. Trying to make it better, don’t know where we went wrong”. He exclaims “Hey Little Sister” “I got the right stuff… not enough money but I got got good lovin, that’s all you need” and cites to the world “Hey, the world is hard, it can seem so far.”
“Angry” is a blistering statement on the world. Oh, bad mood rising. Oh, storm on the horizon. Oh, burning me up inside.” “Seems the world is a craze. Is It the end of days?” He tells her, “Loving You Gave Me the Blues” as he is “still peeling off the lies you told me each day”. “I’m still reeling from the pain you gave that night”. He is “out to prove all my love will be true “In the Name of Love” and further declares that things are “not the same without love”.
Alex says, “I need your love, got none. Got no place to go, pulled into the big “Black Hole”. He closes with an acoustic ballad, “Keep on Living” determining “All my life I have thought I’d find a way. Now it’s closer to the end, I’ll carry on”.
As the title announces, Alex seeks to bring blues rock back into the forefront of music. His themes of lost love and the need of love are recurring themes of rock and blues. Alex clearly approaches those ideas with a modern take. He also does not look away from some brief steps into the current social conscious.
