Lucio Rubino - Lucio Rubino

Lucio Rubino – LucioRubino
2012, The Fish Tank RecordsLucio Rubino is a musician in every sense of the word.  Rising to acclaim as lead vocalist for theContemporary Christian pop act StorySide:B, Rubino has also played bass onParamore’s All We Know Is Falling,and has produced albums for Manic Drive, Lighthouse Music, Lindsey Dedge andTodd Lombardo.  As an individual, Rubinohas struggled with issues of sex addition. These issues are touched upon in his solo debut, Lucio Rubino.

Rubino opens with “Better Left Unsaid”, a solid starterthat’s vaguely reminiscent of John Mayer. It’s a nice start musically, although Rubino’s voice soundselectronically engineered here.  “Fallin’From The Start” is a mildly catchy love song that would fare well on thesoundtrack of a CW teen drama. “Moonlight Ride” continues in the vein of solid, workman-like nearballads.  It isn’t until Rubino launchesinto “Promise You That” that we start to get an idea of what he’s capableof.  This sweet little love song is asure-fire mix-tap wonder.  Rubino shows anicely developed pop sensibility, and has crafted a chorus that will run aroundthe inside of your head for days.  Rubino struggles to recreate that magic throughout the restof his self-titled debut.  Efforts suchas “Hard To Find” and “Truth Or Dare” ascend to the solid vibe Rubino startedout the album with, but he never again approaches the McCartney-esque magic of“Promise You That”.  The one exception onthe second half of the album is an impressively emotive cover of LeonardCohen’s “Hallelujah”.  This song is sooverdone it’ almost a become a cliché, and the countless covers start to washover listeners like water.  Rubinonevertheless brings a quiet emotional intensity to the song that is worthtuning in for.

Lucio Rubino, in spite of the overly electronic introductionto his voice, sings with a simple clarity that’s enjoyable.  His songwriting is generally solid, and heoccasionally breaks through into special moments.  If he can find some more consistency in thelatter he is going to have tremendous success. Right now he is like a musical minor digging for gold.  There’s a lot of sweat expended for anoccasional nugget.Rating: 2.5 Stars(Out of 5)

Learn more about Lucio Rubino at www.luciorubino.com.