Driver X

Driven down pop alley: Driver X is solid proof that earnest, pop infected rock music still lives deep in the heart of New York City. The quintet, ably fronted by singer/tunesmith Will Croxton, is currently shopping a demo that will tickle the ears of listeners who subscribe to the intimate introspective fare of bands like Travis and Coldplay. Such standout cuts as the strummy "Daylight" and the delightfully harmonious "Carry Me Home" manage to exude boyish sensitivity without ever sounding wimpy or cloying. Croxton and his bandmates, Phil Yanos (guitar), Kirk Henderson (keyboards) and Brian Patterson (drums) do a good job of keeping the arrangements muscular and reasonably aggressive without ever overpowering Croxton's notably intelligent lyrics and melodies.
Smart major label A&R execs are advised to not wait long. Snap these lads up!

-Larry Flick - Billboard Magazine

Brooklyn's Driver X take the Travis/Coldplay school of earnest and melodic rock songcraft and dirty it up with some welcomed ragged edges and punkish attitude. With Super 12, Driver X's debut, former Idle front man Will Croxton and his band of pop/rock commandos bring uptown bravado to the mix, which stirs in more than a little Dream Syndicate ("Wanderlust," "Florence Ballard's Ghost") and a touch of the Strokes ("Smile").

- Brian Baker - Amplifier Magazine

Super 12 is a smooth, high quality debut. The guitars run the gamut from thick and fuzzy to delicately evocative. Will Croxton's vocals are sweet, with just a touch of hoarseness, his lyrics neither yawningly obviously nor willfully obtuse, and the production is crystal clear. The drummer is great, too -- both inventive and locked-in dependable.

Lead singer Croxton used to head up Idle, a below-the-radar Brooklyn-based band. In his new outfit, he seems ready for a step up the food chain. It could easily happen, because Driver X delivers the expansive, arena-ready romanticism of Oasis with a true-blue gutsiness that recalls The Band. It's a very commercial sound, one that would fit right into Top 40 Radio or a Miller Lite ad, but quite enjoyable all the same.

The typical Driver X song starts with a plaintive verse, then explodes into a loud, rhythmic chorus. It's a little confusing on "Highway" -- the album opener sounds like two songs jury-rigged together -- but works better on follow-up "Red, White, Blue". Further on, the power ballad "Carry Me Home" makes the transition flawless, as the band slips effortlessly from guitar-picking intimacy to electrified big finish.

Most of Super 12's tracks are mid-tempo ballads reinforced with powerful rhythmic backbone. "You Like the Rain", one of the disc's highlights, employs a chugging bass and guitar line over sinuous drumming to prevent sag in the slow-mo melody. A new wave-influenced "Smile" keeps its nostalgia astringent with pulsing guitar riffs and goofy lyrics. "Why won't you smile," the singer asks, offering Marvin Gaye to a teenage crush who prefers the Cars and Venus and Mars. Can't imagine why she didn't, but I did.

The only thing that's lacking in Super 12, in my view, is the hint of incipient chaos -- the feeling that one loose string could pull the whole mess apart -- that elevates great rock music above the merely good. It almost happens in "Daylight", when angled vocal counterpoint and vaulting guitars come closest to lifting Driver X into the stratosphere. It's the album's best song -- the one that makes me happiest, and the one that feels least likely to wear out on repeated listens.

Driver X is definitely a band to watch, but I'd like to see them take a few more chances next time out. Their excellent first effort rolls the ball right up the middle of the lane. It's a shot full of power and form, and I'd say they knock about eight pins down in the first frame. If they want to get the two that are left in the back corners, however, their follow-up may require a little more spin.

- Jennifer Kelly
- Splendid E-Zine

Driver X in the drivers seat.

With new records out by Paul Westerberg, Wilco, and Elvis Costello, why does Driver X stay on my stereo so long?

As a kid who grew up in blatant adoration of all things Husker Du, Replacements, or Elvis Costello I should be ecstatic right now. Three new records in less than six weeks or so by these heroes - Costello's so-called return to form When I Was Cruel, Westerberg's give-the-people-what-they-want Stereo/Mono, and Bob Mould's well documented fucking of everyone who'd ever cared for the man's music on Modulate - should have me too fucking giddy to even write. But, alas, Costello's record is an admirable and fun listen, as well as a welcome return to playing the kind of smart pop and roll that only he seems to pull off consistently, but it isn't a revelation. Nor is Westerberg's effort. Stereo/Mono is certainly a very good record, that is, for Westerberg fans that've been desperately waiting for this one for almost a decade now. But, as much as I do like it, it isn't the sort of thing I'd go off recommending to the uninitiated (I'd send them, obviously, straight to "Unsatisfied" and then let them work their own way forward and back). And Mould's piece of shit noisefest is, well, as I have said before, both insulting and infuriating.

So with all of these ghosts of my rock and roll past in fine form and coming back to haunt me why am I not ecstatic? Well, I am, wildly so...only not over their records (again, ahem, don't get me wrong here - Costello's and Westerberg's are heady, sharp efforts that I play often, but something else has gotten my little goat lately - so let the man explain, okay?). I'm helpless you see - this record dropped itself in my mailbox about, oh, two weeks ago and it's taken me...and good. It's tied my fucking hands behind my back, stripped me of sensible critical distance, and beaten itself into my every recent passing moment of my rather shaky life.

Driver X - Whomever they may be (something about being some sort of previous incarnation called Idle comes to mind - if that strikes a bell with anyone out there) have a record out there called Super 12 - and I want to thank them, desperately, for ensuring that my oft-idle hands got on this thing. Super 12 is the new rockroll meteor that has somehow shifted its arc and eclipsed Costello and Westerberg's sun in my universe.

Now, by no means am I trying to put any sort of pressure on these boys by slapping them up there on the pedestal that Elvis C. and Paul W. had and have previously scaled, but I am saying that this record is a pretty swell new piece of product that satiated my jones for a pure rockroll alternative in these grim Days of Fear.

That said, this record simply could not kick off in any better fashion than it does in the king-hell drama of "Highway" and the whimsy-pop "Red, White, and Blue" - all channeled through a sort of guitar heavy roots pop beaten along its way by some high and wild drum sounds (a messy description to be sure - but YOU buy the goddamn thing and tell me what YOU think!) It's the sort of stuff that makes you wanna roll down the windows, ease back the sun roof (or, like me, wish you had a fucking sunroof), and turn up the goddamn stereo to try and drown out all of the window rattling bass heavy hip-hop that rules the worlds roads these days (not that I have a chip on either shoulder or anything - it's just that I sorta miss hearing some Van Halen pour outta the windows of a primer-gray Camaro)

Sure these guys sound like someone else at times (I could name one band, you could probably name three - but that isn't the point), but the sound like a better someone else. Which bears out its truth in the fact that I can sit around and go, "Damn, that sounds like...like...like..." But can never put my finger on exactly who it is - therefore negating the others and leaving Driver X to take possession of those sounds as their own (the old "possession is 9/10ths of the law" spiel implies their right to lay claim).

Super 12 is pretty exciting stuff. "Carry Me Home", "Lazy Eye", "Afraid to Fly" - all quality work that strikes a sharp balance between a too hard country-folksiness and a too acoustic straight up alternative rock. It's a precarious balancing act, but Driver X pulls it off, and moreover, Super 12 is the kind of record that would seem to portend something even greater down the line.

A week and a half dozen new records had past since I'd fired off this little write-up about Driver X and I had started wondering upon re-reading it whether or not I'd gone a little over the top - that maybe I really went a bit too far with my endorsement of this record. It's certainly something that a fella has to be careful of in this day and age of so much useless musical noise (really, it can mesmerize you into a false sense of something mediocre being much better than it really is). So I stepped away from my "review" and pulled Super 12 back out for a listen. I needed o - Bangsheet.com

Location: The City That Never Sleeps (that's New York, folks)

Initial Impression: As the name would suggest, Super 12 is home to twelve stellar tracks from New York's own, Driver X.

Notable Lyric: "Life's too much to ask for the sun, there's only one verse and then it's done" - from the melancholy "Lazy Eye"; "I'll follow you if I must, out of the dust, into the daylight" - from the aptly titled, hopeful, "Daylight"

Factoid: The band appeared at SXSW 2002, and are touted as "solid proof that earnest, pop infected rock music still lives deep in the heart of New York City," by Billboard Magazine.

Serve With: Lying under the stars with the one you love- and a bottle of Absolute wouldn't hurt, either.

Comments: A mix of retro and current, modern and perfectly antiquated, the band's sound lends itself across genres- and that's a beautiful thing. When the band find the "Highway", it's only just the beginning. Track two, "Red, White, Blue" displays the band's mix of seriousness and fun; with characteristicly gentle vocals from Will Croxton that, at times, come to a near whisper.

From there on out, there's highs ("You Like The Rain", "Daylight") and lyrical lows ("Carry Me Home", "Lazy Eye") on this solid offering by a definite band to watch for!

- Jeanne

- Score! Magazine

Driver X play electric/acoustic indie rock of the sort that proliferated in the early '90s in towns like Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Lawrence, Kansas and Athens, Georgia. It used to be called "college rock," but these days the people who make and listen to this genre are just as likely to be teaching classes as they are to be taking them. Sadly, much of the rock that manifests itself on college campuses these days is either some sort of '80s synth pop redux or potty humor-laced pop punk. And then there is the frat rock of the 21st century: nu-metal rap rock. It's enough to make you yearn for the days when someone as plain and ugly as Dinosaur Jr.'s J. Mascis could have his face plastered all over MTV. So, back to Driver X. They have enough pop in their bones to draw a Dinosaur Jr. (in their less mopey stages) or Superchunk comparison at times, but they also seem influenced by the most recent wave of British indie pop bands, like Travis. On tracks like "Daylight," vocalist Will Croxton takes McCartneyesque harmonies and bends them back and forth with his versatile, if somewhat straining voice. "Smile" is so much more upbeat and poppy than the preceding tracks that it almost sounds like a cover at first. It is on the bar rock-y "I Want You" that Driver X start to reveal an identity crisis of sorts. The rest of the songs are cohesive enough to indicate these guys can work it out, but Croxton's McCartney-like chorus on "I Want You," cries out for more than the wanky guitar lead that dominates the rest of the song.<br><br>- Jesse Serwer - Good Times Magazine