Recently Added 4 (from the archives)

 

CALL IT THE TRUTH

EP: “Fight for Your Life”

There’s a nice, funky swing and jazzy bed to this music, even when they’re laying into swooping rock choruses; the guitarist jives and the drummer fills against pulsing bass, giving the songs, even at their biggest, that danceability.  Call It the Truth seems to be defining their own line between funk, sing-along jam, pop, and rock, and they’re at their most memorable when the whole band lands together on kicks that make you want to sing along with them.

VERB THE ADJECTIVE NOUN

EP’s: “Novella,” “Reds”

There are two very different sides of the band set in relief by these two EP’s, but, like an optical illusion, it’s how they complement each other that forms the focus.  Like a scene at a bar, things are boisterous here and melodramatic there; there’s introspection, camaraderie, stumbling, shouting, and, yes, some singing along. If the genuinely folksy vocals on the slower numbers don’t find their way under your skin and make you feel the music, well… you can always go drink with the rock crowd instead.

GHOST BOX ORCHESTRA

EP: “The Only Light On”

This is music to watch Baraka or Koyaanisqatsi to.  There are seriously groovy sections (see if the opening of “The Lodge” doesn’t get you bobbing), washes of guitar, and expertly-chosen flourishes like chimes, barely-there vocals, percussion, cymbal sweeps, and a few effects I can’t even exactly name, but suspect come from a guitar.  This EP fearlessly goes where few have gone before – it’s a long march, but it’s something like traveling with a hooded and mysterious companion, one that keeps you glancing and guessing the whole way.

 

BARN

LP: “Solace,” Three Singles

I got “Solace” by Barn from my friends over at F Nice Records, and I spent fifteen minutes looking for him online to ask his permission to include the music in Band Over Boston.  Is he a willfully faceless voice in local music?  Or is he just, as he says, “terrible at promotion?”  I don’t yet really know who the man behind the music is, but one thing is clear – he can rock.  There’s a disarming humility and huskiness to both his voice and the songs, which leaves you a little surprised to find hooks like “Annadean,” riffs like “Whisky and Guns,” and even drum beats like “Tonight!” stuck in your head later.  He sounds stubbornly stuck in the rock days of yore, but who’s complaining?  I ain’t.

- Cullen Corley