On Paul Banks’ debut album, Banks, he brings a new style to the rock scene while reminding us of some of rock’n’roll’s great pasttime achievements. With deep base grooves on the aptly titled The Base to start things off, Paul Banks takes us on a journey into his style of rock mixed with some funk grooves of hip hop to get the base pumping for all those who like to crank up their sound system and jam out. While just 10 tracks long and clocking in at only 40 minutes in length, Banks does what his name suggests and banks off of different ideas that musicians have used before him. This is not to say it’s not necessarily original since it still provides a cool easy listen when you fire up the disc. It just seems as though Paul Banks is trying to do too much here and experiment with too many things at once instead of finding one steady flowing sound that switches from time to time and makes for that stunning concept album which this album most certainly could have done with just a little more focus. -Matt Wylie