The listening room: Stretching out

The quartet is most in its element on riff-driven rockers like “Matchead” and the album’s opener, “Decision.”

“Decision,” features a brief introduction — an enigmatic lead guitar drifting above a chugging rhythm guitar — before launching into the big, heavy guitar riff that drives the song. The bands two-voiced approach, with bassist Randy Riddle and guitarist John Keffalo sharing lead vocal duties, brings a thickness of tone to the verse. Their voices have an edge, but never cross over into screaming.

The band pulls back the intensity for a minute on a subdued bridge, only to ramp up to an energetic lead guitar dual. This is one of Core Effect’s strengths, the ability to ebb and flow, carefully controlling pacing and dynamics.

While those tracks are where the band is most at home, it also uses this album to show its versatility. The second track, “Level,” features a bluesy verse that breaks into a rollicking shuffle at the chorus. “Let Go,” on the other hand, uses a warbly, quasipsychedelic guitar/keyboard duo to support its verses — creating an interesting contrast to the heavier, guitar-driven chorus. On “Mountain Lion Dead,” the band laces its verses with a minor-key Southwestern flavor.

“Coroner,” possibly the album´s strongest track, features one of the album’s catchiest choruses. The band pulls back the intensity for a bluesy bridge before launching into a brief, David Gilmore-esque guitar solo.

At times, lead guitarist Joe Keough seems caught between two worlds. The guitarist seems to prefer spacious, bluesy solos, which serves him well in most situations. There are times, however, when the band cranks up its intensity, and a little more 1980s-style virtuosity would take the track to a new level.

There are some standouts though, including the guitar solo on “Marigold.” The solo starts out tamely but gradually builds in intensity, ramping up to the tracks final, epic chorus.

The album is expertly mixed, with everything seemingly in its right place. The band’s two-guitar attack sounds thick, but never muddy, and the band’s two vocalists are well balanced. Drums and bass are present without getting in the way. Beds of percolating keyboards and guitar ebb and flow underneath when texture is required, while other times the sound is stripped down to its bare elements.

The quality of the mix should come as no surprise, however. The album was recorded and mixed by sound guru Glenn Brown at his Lansing studio.

This reviewer’s biggest complaint, actually, is that the recording quality is sometimes too clean for my taste. Several times I found myself wishing the guitars had a little more grit and thickness of tone. (Of course, my musical development included a pretty significant Korn/Deftones/System of a Down phase, so my baseline for guitar distortion may be a bit skewed.)

In any case, Core Effect has put together a solid collection of songs. “Ethos” manages to fit a wide swath of musical influences into a short span, and the band avoids the error so many bands make: inflating an album with filler tunes to get to an expected album length. In a digital age where media is omnipresent and time is precious, quality goes much further than quantity.