THE NUMB ONES are one of the few South Florida rock bands down here fortunate enough to have a chance to break nationally. Having recently signed to Cleopatra Records, recording in CA with CINDERELLA’s Fred Coury as producer, touring, and making a couple of videos have definitely put the group at a level most musicians envy. When I first heard them almost 3 years ago, I had a gut feeling they were going places. I was right as usual. Yada friggin’ yada. Alright enough with the intro and on with the rock.

The title track kicks this off with quite a bang. The energy level is then vastly neutered when the second track “Space and Time” is introduced. Not a bad ballad, but it should have been placed more towards the middle of the disc. When you make a full-on rawk record like this, there should be at least three hard ones in a row. This is a minor quip to a degree and the first DARKNESS disc had a similar tracking faux pass with the too briskly introduced “Growing On Me” and we got over it just fine. THE SHIRTS debut has a similar problem, yet their record was quite possibly the best album of 1978.

Vocalist/bassist Russ Rogers has one of those voices that can handle just about any kind of tune that passes through the NUMB ONE mantra. The very best of these tunes thus far on this disc are “Arm’s Length”, “The Blanket”, the aforementioned title track, and “Understated”. I have never dug their cover of “Just What I Needed” as I have never cared much for the song in the first place. They do little of anything new with it here or live. They fair much better with The Sweet’s “Love is Like Oxygen” in which they change the arrangement around quite liberally.

The sticker Cleopatra has been putting the shrink-wrap reads “A must for fans of THE FOO FIGHTERS, VELVET REVOLVER and melodic rock with an edge”. I can’t say that is too way off base, although I would mention that the NO is much closer to the FF than the VR. Whatever, “Everything In Between” is a solid rock record and as fine a debut as any. Yada, yada.

-Herring

OFFICIAL SITE: www.numbones.com

MP3 SOUND SCRAP: Space and Time

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