A Small Victory – El Camino

Its been around a year since A Small Victory started receiving press all over the place. That press came from signing onto the ever growing Lobster Records and then soon releasing their debut EP, The Pieces We Keep. The Ep received pretty good reviews and the band started to receive a good reputation. I never got around to picking up The Pieces We Keep, but after hearing El Camino, their debut full length, I’m starting to think that I should.

The ten track album features nine upbeat, guitar driven melodies along with the must-have acoustic song that all bands seem to have nowadays. The band is very guitar driven, and most of the songs are made out of the same structure. In fact, between Otis and Sirens Over Sinclaire, it is hard to tell when one song ends and the other begins. But you do get the occasional standout track here and there, like Blindman’s Holiday, Limousines And Cheap Cigars, the acoustic Farewell Capside, and James Dean C-Side. This makes for a pretty balanced CD with a few standout tracks and a few that just play smoothly without grabbing you completely. The vocals are nice and clear, and quite often pretty catchy too. A Small Victory uses a darker lyrical approach with songs about whiskey, drinking, smoking, and cheap cigars. But they do also have a lighter side with songs about relationships and girls.

El Camino is a good album. One reason I really like it is that it doesn’t get too repetitive. I just listened to it for around 5 hours straight and I can still listen to it more if I wanted to. A Small Victory is a good band, but they don’t break many new boundaries with their album. Unfortunately, a lot of it has been done before, so that is one reason why it is a little disappointing.