The Great Escape - S/T (Self-Released)

The Great Escape is a soulful pop band from Los Angeles, inspired by musicians from legends like Janis Joplin to modern artists such as Adele. On their debut self-titled full-length, the production is bluesy, raw and ragged while simultaneously sounding lush and alive. Songs like the opener “All I Think About” bring to mind the guitars and production employed by The Beatles later in their career. The album is only slightly more polished than the work by contemporaries like The Black Keys, but one can also make the argument that there is a lot more diversity here, and singer Amie Miriello’s impassioned and soulful vocals offer a truckload’s worth of emotional range.

The album stays at a fairly heavy pace until the country tinged “The Secret Song” where things roll along gently with playful horns and harmonica aided by a roaring chorus replete with handclaps and percussion. At their heart, The Great Escape is a garage band, but they continue to show their range on songs like “Don’t Wake Me Up,” an acoustic number that could have easily come out of 1960’s Laurel Canyon. “It’s Getting Better” is one of the best songs here, an exhilarating jumpy soul track, and the album closes with the quaint, acoustic-dominant “I Just Can’t Help Myself,” a song partially from the textbooks of Big Star. Overall, The Great Escape is a genuinely thrilling and successfully ambitious debut album.