Artist: ps
Album: Double Standards
Label: Speechless

   Patrick Savage, singer and songwriter of ps, makes and breaks the band. He has a powerful, tenor voice, which at times is emotionally raw. The clause “at times” is the real clincher; at times it evokes Jeff Buckley, at others of 80’s hair bands and mediocre adult alternative.

   The music lends nothing stronger then a semi catchy drum beat or guitar riff here and there. The music itself is composed of clean drums, your typical switch off between distorted and undistorted guitars. You have keyboards and a cello backing or lightly starting songs, but they are not at the forefront for the most part. Nothing spectacular anywhere to be found, but nothing that drags you down into mediocrity either. Savage’s voice is the key to ps and takes center stage throughout the whole album. Ps reminds me of a poor man’s Sensefield at times.
 
   In songs like “Reserved” or “Sense of Humor” there is a really distasteful adult alternative feel, which is too bad, because they start off the album. This led to a bad impression right off the bat for me which made the rest of the album hard to enjoy. After breaking past and writing off those two songs and absently listening to a handful of others I stumbled upon the real gems. “Reaching” begins with just Savage’s voice, which just mesmerizes as the rest of the band fades in. The song is simple and sincere, as Savage seems to plead with you. This is where ps are at their strongest; the simple and sincere. Anything more seems to bring the songs down. “Pylons”, “Do’s and Don’ts” and “Vena Cava” are all good songs and merit praise.
 
   As I just wrote this review and listened to the album again, I feel myself connecting with ps a lot more than I had before, and believe they deserve more praise than I initially was going to give them when I started.