3 out of 5

Label: Five Seven Music

Produced by: Tim Edgar, Jerry Ordonez, Seth Paulus (engineered by)

Sweet, a dance-pop album.  TOTALLY what I wanted / expected from female-fronted rock group Nico Vega.

Fine, the group leaned more toward head-boppin’ before slapping on some grit for their self-titled disc, but the success of that album (to mine ears, the only that matter) was almost exclusively due to that grit: Aja Volkman’s throaty chants covered up thematically repetitive, somewhat thin lyrics, and her guitar and drum backup were mixed with a Lenny Kravitz stomp, all tribal-drummed up to get your blood pumping and maybe make you miss that you’d heard these riffs and structures before.  But whatever: it was pure momentum.  And a lasting rush.  Tthe disc stands up to repeated, repeated spins because despite my backhanded compliments, it’s not soulless.  It feels like the emotion is legit.

As I collected the groups scattered EPs from prior to that album’s release, I began to have some doubts: everything I bought was almost all old versions of the songs that would get a proper polish on s/t.  The core catchiness was still there, but you could tell they’d found their way to the right producer to turn their sound into something that seemed fresh and immediate.  However, the lack of material made me worry that I was listening to something of a one-trick pony.  And ‘Lead to Light…’ well, doesn’t really dispel that.

On the whole, the album is still filled with plenty of memorable pop songs.  Most of the tracks have choruses that’ll get stuck in your head, and Aja still can’t break out the vocal freakout, but it’s all tempered behind an 80s sheen this time.  Fittingly, Aja has changed the pitch of her lyrics to match: while she’s still a “strong” female voice, much, much more of this disc is about boys than self-titled’s “everyone can fuck off” mentality.  The lack of sneer combined with the lack of musical muscle relegates ‘Lead to Light’ to just being an average disc, almost teetering to disappointing when the cheesy ‘Good’ ballad starts to play – saved by some concluding vocal acrobatics – or when the disc wraps up with the sappy ‘The Lucky One,’ which is a pretty hilarious counterpoint to the previous album’s ‘Beast.’

Now wait – there is one track that rocks out on here and sounds like the NV you expected – ‘Fury Oh Fury.’  But what’s that?    …It appeared on a previous EP.  Womp.  (Along with the title track, actually.  Bu-womp.)

I won’t deny Nico Vega put themselves in a tough spot by having such a bold debut album.  Sophomore slumps suggests you either hit repeat or overdo it.  So the band took a swerve and went for the Blondie version of badass instead.  It’s a convincing act, and they wring some good tracks out of it.  But that sentence belies the problem: this time it felt like an act.  Without a strong emotional backbone, ‘Lead to Light’ passes the time and makes you tap your toe, but doesn’t leave a lasting impression.