The Internet's guitarist, Steve Lacy comes full circle on his self-titled demo

Written by Waylon O'Day     

MLM Rating : 3.4 out of 5 Stars

Steve Lacy, a guitarist for the Internet’s 2015 album, Ego Death, just released his self-titled demo. The six-track project is the Compton artist’s first solo release, and in less than fourteen minutes, he is able to show prowess as not only a guitarist, but as a songwriter, and audio engineer.

Tracks 2 and 3 off of STEVE LACY'S DEMO. https://awal.lnk.to/SLDemo https://soundcloud.com/steevlacy/sets/steve-lacys-demo

Steve's first single off 'Steve Lacy's Demo" stevelacys.com Introducing: Steve Lacy Directed by: Matthew Castellanos Cinematographer: Charles Doan Edited by: Brian Mitchell, Alan Kent Colored by: Casey Redmon Art direction: Tyson Hubley

The opening track “Looks,” sounds like a demo, Lacy’s vocals sound really strained, and out of place, just not a strong showing. “Ryd” follows, changing the mood of the project by giving Lacy a chance to sing in his register and deliver a beautiful guitar riff. “Dark Red” is easily the most well-polished piece of the demo; the sound is perfectly mixed, with each element residing in its own sonic pocket. 

“Thangs” will be pretty underwhelming for listeners not familiar with acts like Thundercat and the Internet. “Haterlovin’” is essentially a two-minute long jam session where a looped vocal overshadows the blazing drums. Closing track “Some,” is sooooooo smooth, Lacy’s vocals come across like satin, the bass line is velvet and the ten-second guitar solo? Immaculate.

Steve Lacy’s debut is excellent for a demo, but there’s clearly room to build and grow on the progress exemplified here. He hits his mark the on tracks like “Ryd,” ”Dark Red”  and “Some,” and falls flat on tracks like “Thangs,” and “Haterlovin’” which are excellent tracks for people who are already into Lacy’s contemporaries, but I don’t see your average listener enjoying them. “Looks,” is only the only song on this demo that I didn’t really enjoy, the instrumentation was fantastic, but the vocals hurt the track badly. 

"Steve Lacy’s debut is excellent for a demo, but there’s clearly room to build and grow on the progress exemplified here. "

I’d have to rate this as a 3.4, I think it’s great, but then again I love this sort of sound, so I’m sort of biased, regardless, I think this is a strong showing from one of the West Coast’s most talented budding artists.

Listen to it here 

a song series.