There’s a moment on just about every track on San Leandro’s debut album, “Dive,” when everything clicks. The keys settle in, the rhythm section finds the pocket, a guitar slips around the beat, and suddenly you’re just listening.
For Leandro “Leo” Albertoni, that feeling is what it’s all about.
“I’ve always loved what happens when musicians are really listening to each other,” says Albertoni, the band’s founder. “You can hear the little imperfections, the push and pull, and that’s usually the stuff that makes me want to keep listening.”
You can hear that philosophy in the way “Dive” comes together. The eight-track debut drops on September 18 on Color Red Music, the Denver label founded by Eddie Roberts of The New Mastersounds.
Drawing from ’70s soul, blues, funk and psych rock, the record doesn’t feel like an exercise in looking backward. These are personal songs about trying to understand yourself, sitting with doubt, taking risks and figuring out what comes next. “There’s a lot of music in there that I’ve loved for years, but I wasn’t trying to recreate any particular era. I wanted to take those sounds and see what they could say about where I’m at now,” Albertoni explains.
The frontman, keyboardist and producer has spent years learning how to make music work in the real world. He grew up around blues jams in Madison, Wisconsin, learning songs by ear and eventually playing professionally while still in his teens. He later moved to Chicago in 2022, where he toured with Toronzo Cannon and performed alongside musicians including Buddy Guy. He also appeared at the Chicago Blues Festival and worked with artists such as Neal Francis, Andy Frasco and Paul Nelson, along with Damon Wood of James Brown’s band.
Along the way, Albertoni also built a career behind the scenes, producing for other artists. By the time he moved to Denver in 2023, he had already spent years figuring out how bands communicate, how records come together and what makes a song work when the room is full of musicians.
“I’ve spent a lot of years playing other people’s music and helping other artists bring their records to life. At some point I realized I had a lot I wanted to say too.”
That shift is a big part of what makes “Dive” feel different from a typical debut. Albertoni isn’t new to music. He’s new to putting this particular part of himself front and center.
“A lot of these songs came out of trying to figure myself out. Some of them are messy, some are hopeful, but they’re all coming from a pretty honest place.”
His years in Chicago are all over the record in spirit, but Denver gave him a different kind of room to work. The move wasn’t about leaving one musical identity behind as much as giving himself the freedom to build something new.
“Chicago taught me how to play. Denver gave me the space to step back and figure out what I wanted my own music to sound like.”
There’s also a deeper California connection in the story. Albertoni’s family once operated a dairy farm in what is now Carson, California, and Albertoni Street in the city carries the family name. That connection helped shape the decision to bring the project back to California for its current first run of shows.
The record itself was built around Albertoni’s desire to keep things feeling alive and collaborative. He’s joined by Darian Woller, Everett Sutton, AJ Hall and Noam Wallenberg, with each musician bringing a different piece to the sound. Across the eight tracks, Dive moves through the reflective “Receive,” the guitar-driven “Fractures,” the spacious “Eternity,” the soulful “I Won’t Give In,” the dreamy “Sunlight Daydream,” the forward-looking “Time Moves On,” and the closing “Pacify,” with the title track setting the tone for the record as a whole.
One of the album’s more unusual tracks, “Receive,” stretches seamlessly, giving the band plenty of room to settle into the groove. “Fractures,” meanwhile, started with a guitar riff that came to Albertoni while he was doing laundry in 2025. It’s a good example of how these songs came together, less through some grand plan and more through following an idea when it showed up.
Vince DiFiore, founding member and trumpeter of multi-platinum Sacramento rock band Cake, whose 2011 album Showroom of Compassion debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, praises Dive, saying, “San Leandro’s album has rock-solid grooves and swinging vocals. It is full of soul, with expert musicianship and a tasteful range of styles.”
For Albertoni, the real test of the songs comes when the band gets them onstage. “The best nights are when we get locked in, and the songs start going somewhere you didn’t expect. That’s what keeps me excited about playing live.”
After years of playing, touring, producing, and helping other musicians find their sound, Albertoni seems more interested now in following his own instincts than trying to fit neatly into one genre or scene.
“These days, I’m less concerned with proving anything and more interested in following my instincts. If the music feels real to me, that’s what matters.”
That might be the simplest way into “Dive.” There’s plenty of groove, plenty of musicianship and plenty of history behind it, but at its core, it’s a record about finding your own voice.
“I hope people find their own way into this record. There’s a lot of groove in it, but there’s also a lot of my life in there. You can just put it on and let it unfold.”
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