Adelitas Way - 'Home School Valedictorian' Review

Improving on their 2009 self-titled debut, Adelitas Way’s new record, Home School Valedictorian, is a more confident and tuneful affair. Unfortunately, the Las Vegas quartet are still a bit too reliant on hard rock formulas to leave much of an impression. Home School Valedictorian is a step in the right direction, but the group sound like they’re trying very hard to color within the lines rather than taking real risks.

Like a lot of mainstream hard rock bands, Adelitas Way cover all the predictable territory on Home School Valedictorian. They’ve got the angry common-man rants (like on the single “Sick”), they tackle relationship woes (on the up-tempo “Criticize”), they go for the sweeping sing-along love song (“Alive”), and they’ve got the adrenaline-fueled workout songs (the album-opener “The Collapse”). Anchored by frontman Rick DeJesus and his welcome lack of bombast, Home School Valedictorian feels ready for radio, its hooks showing up on schedule and its guitars muscular without being showy. Especially for younger listeners who aren’t familiar with the genre tropes being exploited, the record may prove to be a sturdy pleasure. But others will be let down by the utter lack of surprise.

Home School Valedictorian is riddled with songs about love gone bad. The weakest are the ones that are merely petulant or whiny, like “Criticize,” but the best suggest a more mature or at least a more compelling perspective on romantic misery. “Good Enough” describes that tricky situation where staying in the relationship is as hard as leaving. Even better is “Alive,” an effective mid-tempo number in praise of a spectacular girl that boasts a soaring melody. Equally strong, “I Can Tell” is the other side of that coin, looking at the wreckage after the relationship is over. While Home School Valedictorian may be somewhat sappy, it’s to the band’s credit that they don’t flaunt the misogynistic attitudes too often seen in other hard rock groups.

But if Adelitas Way are a band who wear their heart on their sleeve, then perhaps it’s no surprise that Home School Valedictorian suffers greatly when it emphasizes by-the-numbers aggression over sentiment. The album’s opening salvo of “The Collapse” and “Sick” feels very programmatic, as if the quartet wanted to prove their hard rock credentials from the outset. The problem is that neither track really detonates; instead, they make a lot of ruckus without ever grabbing you by the throat. Later on, Home School Valedictorian ventures again into more hard rock territory, and once again the results are bland: “Cage the Beast” is an unconvincing look at a person’s dark side, and “Move” is a formulaic raise-the-roof rocker that seems to have been written specifically to serve as the theme music for a wrestler. When DeJesus tries to come across as edgy or dangerous, it tends to make him a lot less interesting of a frontman.

Home School Valedictorian is a tale of two bands. On one side, you’ve got an engaging group that, while not terribly original, can pen some fetching love songs. On the other side, there’s a band huffing and puffing to demonstrate they can rock with the big boys. Two albums in, Adelitas Way are still trying to find their way to a genuinely original sound, and you sense that they’ve got the chops and the heart to do it. Right now, it’s a question of them developing that vision, which will require them letting go of formula and forging their own path.

'Home School Valedictorian' – Best Tracks:

“Alive” (Purchase/Download)
“Good Enough” (Purchase/Download)
“I Can Tell” (Purchase/Download)
“Hurt” (Purchase/Download)
“Somebody Wishes They Were You” (Purchase/Download)

Release date – June 7, 2011
Virgin

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publicist. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.