I first encountered the band Sandata through the social networking site Couchsurfing where their frontman Aldrich Policarpio was also a member. Their music was right up my alley – it was reminiscent of the old school hard rock that was prevalent during the early to mid 90s. The songs had an anthemic quality that hints at potential commercial viability while still maintaining a very unapologetic rock edge.
A week ago, Aldrich posted a notice on the site bulletin board inviting everyone to Sandata’s EP launch at Mag:net Bonifacio High Street last Saturday (September 12, 2009). It sure seemed like a very well anticipated event – there were more than 200 people on Facebook who said that they were going!
I got a copy of The Light EP at the entrance and here are my thoughts regarding the album.
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With all the music that’s overwhelming the local scene, Sandata is able to offer a fresh yet familiar sound with their unique brand of metal.
Sandata starts their band introduction on their Myspace page with this sentence. While I do agree that they have songs that may easily fall under the metal category, I don’t exactly agree that their sound is fresh. But hey, you don’t really need to sound fresh to be good. The real strength of the band is to combine the guitar grit and grime of the hard rock scene of the 90s with a slightly more accessible approach to rock vocals.
The EP has five songs that could easily get airplay at NU 107 or LA 105.9.
“Chasing Eden” has a very cathartic groove that can make the song feel like a Christian rock ditty. It’s a fairly solid song that has a strong driving chorus. You could already imagine people singing along.
“Unos” is the second track – and incidentally, my favorite track in the entire EP. The song has a very interesting approach to syllabication in the verse to complicated the guitar shreds. There are plenty of glory notes in this song and Aldrich certainly proves with the rest of them with the way he wails in a prolonged manner in several instances in this track. This has the makings of a powerful song- innovative delivery, a soaring guitar solo, absolutely anthemic and a very relatable message about personal trials. I haven’t been listening to the radio lately and I’m sure that hard rock isn’t the cup of tea of current listeners nowadays so I’m not sure if this would fit in today’s charts. Had this gotten its time under the sun back in the 90s, this would’ve been a big hit.
“The Light” takes off from where “Chasing Eden”; at least thematically. The verse has a relatively heavy guitar riff treatment but it has the characteristic soaring chorus that is complemented by an equally cathartic-sounding guitar arrangement. The solo at the latter part of the song hints at the other musical avenues that the band can potentially take in the future. The arrangement was so good it almost felt like symphonic metal.
“Ngayong Gabi” was the first song by Sandata to ever get airplay on local radio (at least that’s what Aldrich told the crowd). This song is the evil step brother of “The Light” – instead of being optimistic, the song revels in the perils of existence and daily struggle. Much liberties have been also taken to make the lead guitar take center stage even during the verses. I love how authentic and pained the song’s character is. Again, this would have been anthemic back in the 90s when mainstream rock was almost entirely about doom and gloom.
“Eyes of the Fallen” would probably be my least favorite song of the five songs in the EP. Structure wise, this would have to be the song that has the least amount of range in terms of how differently the verse and the chorus sounds. I fully respect the artistic decision of the band to do this, but it’s just not my cup of tea. I can totally see how people would like this though – it’s still pretty catchy. And yeah, this has to be the least hard rock among all the five songs – by far.
Sandata is
Vocals – Drich Policarpio
Guitars- Chris Caldoza
Bass- Mario Consunji
Drums- Myles Guillermo
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Honest and detailed review! I'll be posting for ppl to read about Sandata =)