We Can't Fly

Vito Deluca indulges himself on his outstanding debut. [Oct 2010, p.104]

It's hard to tell how serious De Luca is being here, so over the top is everything (there's a song called Fish in the Sky. No, really). It could be misconstrued as a parody of 70s and 80s musical mores, cramming as it does all manner of instrumental bombast and excess into its 50 minutes.

At times brilliant, as on the 10CC-gone-disco title track or Belgian pop cover Without Lies, which features California wild-child Sky Ferreia, there are also one too many homages to '80s Italian disco and Euro-trash soundtracks. [Oct 2010, p.103]

While it's important to have ambition, Deluca probably should have stuck to the sound he does so well. His desire to stretch makes We Can't Fly a misfire of an album. It would have made a nice EP though.

It seems that the first principles that got Aeroplane their quality remixes--a real sense of atmosphere, and slow disco-house beats that might be regarded as 'cosmic' in some circles--are only fleetingly glimpsed. Deluca has proved that he can comfortably write in a number of different styles of music--but on the next record it might work better to stick to the ones he has truly mastered.