Buzzin’ (EP, 2011)

Love X Stereo, formerly known as Skrew Attack (Korea’s very first skate rock band), has marked its reincarnation with stunning new demo album [Buzzin’]. [Buzzin’] is an electrifying mixture of Skrew Attack’s alternative pop and punk rock styles and a new vein of electronic music, producing novel, experimental sounds. Love X Stereo is not a Skrew Attack side project: it is merely a new name for the band itself as it reveals new sound elements with which it had been experimenting in the days of Skrew Attack.

Skrew Attack’s debut album came in the form of 2008’s Not Enough Translation, with a strong pop punk flavor. Since then, the band has undergone multiple changes in the course of a long series of live performances. New demo album [Buzzin’] gives the best illustration yet of what fans can expect from Love X Stereo in future.

Love X Stereo’s sound basically consists of electronic music built on foundations of 1990s alternative rock and punk rock. With liberal doses of synthesizing and effects, it is highly danceable. Each of Love X Stereo’s sound is a reflection of the combined talents of its three members, each of whom has at least 10 years’ experience in the music industry.

What sets Love X Stereo apart from the electronic sounds enjoying a boom in the 21st century is the fact that its sound is created by former rock musicians. This gives it a delicate-yet-powerful, bright-yet-dark, sophisticated-yet-sometimes brutal color.

Opening track “High Road” gives a no-holds-barred glimpse of Love X Stereo’s fight to create a new sound. Its title suggests the band’s commitment to taking the right path – the path it wants to travel – no matter how hard this may be. The powerful unfolding of its completely rock base, combined with an exciting electronic sound, ushers in an entirely new musical world.

Track 3, “Ocean Breeze,” was the turning point at which Love X Stereo’s style underwent a decisive transformation. It emerged from the mind of a bored office worker, stuck in an office and imagining a beautiful beach. The track’s highlights are its rattling drums, its mesmerizingly whispering vocoder, its straightforward bassline, its raindrop-like guitar line and its strangely captivating chorus. This track has been tweaked over and over by the band to the point where just listening to it gives a vivid sense of being by the sea, smelling the salty air.

Love X Stereo is totally dedicated to creating the perfect sound, focussing on live performances to the point of obsession. More than anything, it wants audiences to immerse themselves in its music completely and dance, sing and forget themselves.

Watch this space for more material from Love X Stereo’s highly experienced members, who do all their own lyric writing, composition, arranging, recording, mixing and producing.