Of course, it could be any kind of engine revving up at the beginning of Deptford, New Jersey rockers Boss 302’s self-titled full-length, but even knowing next to nothing about automobile mechanics, if I had to put money down, I’d wager it’s the Ford Mustang V8 the band is named after. Call me crazy. The trio, who released Boss 302 toward the end of 2010 on Toil Records, get down with 10 tracks/37 minutes of ‘90s style heavy rock. The songs that follow said muscle car flexing are straightforward structurally, unpretentious and asking little of the listener beyond, perhaps, that the production be taken with a grain of salt. Bassist Larry Lerro (great name) handles most of the vocals, with backing/tradeoff work from guitarist John Modugno – who also takes the occasional front role, as on “Never Again” – and drums from Mike Lerro. I’ve been looking at the album more as an extended demo than a complete LP release, and on that level, it will most definitely give listeners an idea of where Boss 302 are coming from.

One could question whether the complete 10 tracks are needed to do that, but Boss 302 are capable songwriters and even with that many cuts on it the record doesn’t get redundant, so as far as I’m concerned, the more the merrier. They claim Kyuss as a central influence, but listening to Modugno’s start-stop riffing on “Sold Our Souls,” “Nothing” and even more so “Sparrow” (one of the album’s high points), I hear more Helmet than anything else — Lerro’s heavily-reverbed vocals helping the case with rhythmic cadence and a kind of mid-period Page Hamilton-style inherent melody, perhaps met with a bit of Goatsnake’s Pete Stahl. The interplay between Lerro and Modugno is well balanced throughout Boss 302, adding arrangement depth to a song like “Falls Apart,” the opening riff of which was reminiscent enough of Queens of the Stone Age’s “Go with the Flow” to launch me on a three-day (so far) Songs for the Deaf bender. The moodier “No Overdose” (Boss 302’s longest song at 5:19) might be the most desert-style rock atmospherically, but Lerro’s drumming is insistent in a manner definitively East Coast, the kick drum providing a glimpse of the heaviness to come when the band kicks back in with one of Modugno’s several accomplished solos.

But although it feels prickish to point out — because it’s pretty obvious that Boss 302 are just three dudes with jobs and real lives (families are thanked in the liner notes) playing heavy rock because they love it — if there’s anything holding these songs back, it’s the production. Lerro’s drums sound canned, the other Lerro’s vocals overly effected, and all around the material comes off flat in a way that undercuts some of the subtle changes and turns in the material. There are a couple glitches with the mix – nothing major – but it really does seem like the issue runs deeper than just how things are balanced and goes to how they were put to tape in the first place. Again, I have no doubt Boss 302 were working on limited time and limited money, but I can’t help but wonder what someone like Andrew Schneider would do with these tracks, as he so ably brought out Throttlerod’s noisy crunch and did so well with fellow Jerseyans Infernal Overdrive’s rocking approach. I guess it all depends on time and money, and since you still get a sense of what Boss 302 bring to the table stylistically and, if nothing else, the recording makes you want to hear how the band sounds live (which is why I say it works on a demo level), one could hardly say it’s not doing its job. It’s not so much that Boss 302 sounds bad or somehow underproduced, it’s just missing the natural feel that makes heavy rock work on in the studio.

That aside, Boss 302 is a strong debut from a band who embody one of the best aspects of the heavy underground, namely playing for the sake of wanting to write good songs with good people and enjoy the process. Those who’ve spent significant time at the altar of the riff will recognize a lot of the elements that comprise these tracks, but the performances of the two Lerros and Modugno make the album easily worth looking into. I’d like to hear “Disarray,” “Sparrow,” and maybe closer “Speed Freak” reworked on subsequent releases, but that’s an issue for another day. Taken as a sign of things to come from the trio, it bodes well and shows potential for growth that will hopefully pan out as they move forward.

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Toil Records

Tags: Boss 302, Deptford, New Jersey, Toil Records

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.