The Valley Arena - Sesso.Vita (CD)

All Music Guide

Long Beach, California trio the Valley Arena seem to be on a oneband quest to retake the term "emo" away from its current "pretty boys in eyeliner and floppy haircuts" mallpunk overtones and back to the glory days of the early to mid'90s, when a string of bands in Chicago, Louisville and (mostly) Washington DC were growing bored enough with hardcore and developing enough instrumental mastery to create a new breed of earnest but often engaging punk and metalinfluenced rock. Strong echoes of firstwave acts like Jawbox, Drive Like Jehu, and Shudder To Think reverberate through the Valley Arena's second album. Occasionally, this sense of nostalgia might cause the listener to dismiss the band as second or thirdgeneration copyists, as on "Perfume Has Expired," with its excessively typey highregister guitar drone, strained vocals and lyrics incorporating phrases from old advertising pitches in place of actual insight. But when the Valley Arena really kick in, on tracks like the atypically catchy "Keep it Discreet," which seems to bear an unexpected influence from Syd Barrettera Pink Floyd, and the ghostly "I Was A Wrecking Ball," the trio deliver on their Dischord Records promise.

- Stewart Mason, All Music Guide