Victor Ferrantella’s This Place is a sonic treat for the ears as well as a collection of finely crafted songs. Ferrantella is a producer so you already know that he and his co-producer, his father Nick Ferrantella, got a high quality shine out of each instrument on each track. Add in Victor Ferrantella’s vast array of influences and techniques and you have an album that offers a lot to all kinds of music fans.
Opening cut “Horizon” sweeps in with an edgy lead guitar phrase from Deacon Lindley before Ferrantella ushers us gently into “On The Radio,” a catchy, breezy ode to listening to his old transistor. His vocal is smoothly delivered, especially on his cushy chorus, gliding across his jazzy soundscape.
Before we know it, Ferrantella has his listener chair dancing to the disco inspired beat of “Living In A Dream.” Augmented by intricate, speedy percussion, this number has several instruments layering a single groove line. Ben Ferrantella’s acoustic guitar, picked a mile a minute, dances on top of the percussion, quick, nimble, rocking it with an almost gypsy dance style piece. Grooving and tastefully played and sung, it’s a winsome piece.
“Out Of Time” evokes a more solemn mood and more tender emotions. A moody cello and Deacon Lindley’s atmospheric guitar shades create the perfect platform for Ferrantella to emote with a serious vocal approach and darker than usual timbre. This could be used in a movie soundtrack for a scene that take place after an epic drama played out in a previous scene. It is very successful in making itself feel like a sequel to some kind of major event.
Ferrantella shades “Occupy” with a slathering of brittle, tuneful xylophone notes. This instrumental piece contrasts those notes well with guitar and keyboard flourishes and an electronic rhythmic track. “New Year” is a thoughtful singer-songwriter approach, with Ferrantella’s acoustic guitar carrying things along with a hearty strum. Around that sparse approach, he layers things with an intriguing interval of spacey keyboard notes. All of these elements come together in a catchy, flourishing melodic line and a smooth vocal that skips along the progressions with hip delivery.
“Got The Moon” has itself a fun keyboard line that sounds almost like a robotic voice. Combined with Tom Stoddart’s saxophone lift, the song turns into a fun funk boogie number. Ferrantella’s voice, uniquely suited to this kind of modern R&B style, gives it all another layer of cool. He simply glows without trying, as his timbre contrasts well with the somewhat edgier sounds beneath. It’s hard to imagine this song not making it onto college and local radio station programs.
“On Our Way” has moody piano and cello gently swaying around Deacon Lindley’s epic, unfurling guitar phrase. This combination of sounds could best be described as fire and ice. That piano and cello combo could send chills down the spine while that lead guitar line could awaken fiery passion in the soul. Ferrantella’s haunting vocal comes in with a frightening sense of purpose that reminds of Pink Floyd at their best.
Next up, “The Arrival” pulls one’s mind into the current electronic genre with its percussion programming and stirring synthesizer reach. The melody seems to just want to keep stretching itself into infinity while something from a dance club pulsates, a primitive beat. This might have been inspired by Alan Parsons Project, based on how the keyboard notes ring out with bright clarity and contrast with a harsher, scarier synth timbre in the backdrop. Ferrantella certainly manages to conjure numerous emotions in this one piece.
“Radioactive” is a speedy combination of jittery electronic percussion and well paced keyboard notes and Ben Ferrantella’s rapid drumming. A lead vocal glides over this mix of tempos, including one from a start-stop acoustic guitar progression, creating a sensation of multiple activities. It’s brilliant in its display of multiple motions within one song.
“Into The Heart” gets a lot of mileage out of Victor Ferrantella’s heartily picked acoustic guitar and George Gardos’s heartily plucked bass notes. Each note rings out with something meaningful, purposeful. Flying around all that is Deacon Lindley’s edgy, spiraling, wild guitar phrase, a six string lift that races upward toward a climactic finale. Ferrantella’s haunting, steady vocal approach combines with that epic lead guitar work to create later day Pink Floyd. It is easy to picture epic adventure taking place with this piece as its soundtrack.
A tribute to the late Felix Pappalardi, “Kind Soul” reminds of Bruce Springsteen crooning a meaningful ballad to a key person in his life. Ferrantella conjures many of the images usually associated with the brilliant bass player, producer, and larger than life personality. Ferrantella’s organ, Tom Stoddart’s sax, George Gardos’s bass, and Ben Ferrantella’s drumming form a solid classic rock nucleus, conjuring that time period when Pappalardi contributed a lot to what was coming out of everybody’s transistor radio and hi fi. Nice.
Ferrantella closes out his album with “Too Long,” a larger than life piano ballad, with soulful vocals, and spirited guitar phrasing. Here, Ferrantella’s elegant piano and Deacon Lindley’s intricate guitar line skitter beautifully over Erik Wendelken’s Arco bass. Again, Ferrantella evokes many moods and feelings by combining edgy guitar with moody cello and tasteful piano tinkling. Everything moves in this song with solemn purpose and stride, making one feel the art while also sensing that Ferrantella could do even more if he had another 13 tracks to work with.
Ferrantella has created with This Place a remarkably diverse sense of musical approaches to evoking mood and feeling. Thankfully, he and his dad have the technological know how to capture every last nuance.
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