Posted on: October 4, 2011 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

The style of music that The Ruse plays is a more smoothed out version of U2 and Oasis; “Everything Comes With A Price” is a vocal-dominated track. This is not to say that the instrumentation is nothing less than impressive; the guitar lines on a song like “Everything Comes With A Price” is something that can be calm and collected even as they bristle with energy. The Ruse is a rock band for the current era, but one that has a pop streak to them that allows the act to realize the largest segment of their potential audience. At some point, The Ruse is an act that fires on all signatures; “Light In Motion” features prominently a number of tracks that have each member of the band take their spot at the front of an act.

An average minute on a Ruse track has the guitar, followed by the drums, bass, and even synthesizer taking the speaking role. The different styles approached by The Ruse on “Light In Motion” are fairly distinguished from each other. For example, “Devil in the Girl” is an electrified song that nonetheless sounds like an acoustic track. This woodsy song is primarily led by the guitar and the vocals of the act. The tender guitar lines that step in at point during the track further make the track a memorable one. The drums start off “Swallow You”, and the mentioning of “heart” by the vocalist seems to be particularly poignant; the drum beats present sound almost like heart-beats.

For some reason, the music on “Light In Motion” just feels to me to be that type of music that would be perfect at the ending of a movie. There is just a type of finality to each track, as the band has led individuals around for three minutes and they are finally getting them settled down in their final places. Each song on this album is great; it is not too terribly much of a surprise that the band has been burning up the CMJ charts as of late. Of particular note is “Swallow You”; the “Synchronicity”-era Police sound fits them like a glove. The Ruse is an act that is familiar due to the tremendous amount of influences that come through at any one given point of this disc, but something completely different as the band forges their own path during “Light in Motion”.

Top Tracks: Devil in the Girl, Light in Motion

Rating: 6.0/10

The Ruse – Light In Motion / 2006 Self / 10 Tracks / http://www.rusemusic.com / Reviewed 07 April 2006

[JMcQ]

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