David Vandervelde, 'Waiting for the Sunrise' (Secretly Canadian)
Savvy glam-pop up-and-comer drifts into a soft-rock sinkhole.
By Andy Beta 08.18.08 4:39 PM
A teen metalcore guitarist turned studio engineer turned glammy multi-instrumentalist (2007's promising The Moonstation House Band), David Vandervelde has already had a whirlwind career by his late 20s. Rather than play every instrument himself on his second album, Vandervelde leads a full band, the Lickedy Splitz, even cowriting a song with buddy and ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett (the overly lax countryish rocker "California Breezes"). But sliding away from his Marc Bolan fixation, Vandervelde sounds more like a subpar Lindsey Buckingham (there's even a cocaine lyric on "Someone Like You"), offering shlocky '70s AM pop rock on drifting, overlong tunes like "Need for Now."
