Todd A

[This review originally appeared in The Scene.]

The Obscure – Laugh like a Whip, Look Like a Dagger (self-released)

Well, they’ve done it. In the course of a few short years, plagued by line-up problems, the Obscure rallied and put 6 months of blood, sweat and imagination into a full-length record and achieved something that most local indie bands never will: they’ve made a record they will be proud of forever. Laugh like a Whip, Look Like a Dagger is light years ahead of their debut EP, Politics of Person, in terms of musical growth. (continue reading…)

I heart Donna R

Honestly, it didn’t start out that way. I didn’t go to meet the Donnas with any sort of pre-existing crush on them. I liked their music and I had been trying for more than a year to interview them. When they finally rolled through Nashville and I got an interview, I was slightly intimidated but not infatuated. That is, not �til later.

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We caught up with Petey X of Rocket From the Crypt a few hours before their show in Nashville. It was a moist 105 degrees as it often is in Nashville in July. To avoid the heat (and the noise of the opening band’s soundcheck), we entered Rocket’s spacious mobile home to conduct the interview.

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Indubitably Nashville’s finest indie-pop band. The Features tease us with a five song EP which portends nothing really. Where is a full length, fellas? The Beginning captures The Features’s American version of the New Wave of New Wave — i.e. the influences of Talking Heads and Blur inform their style. Still, The Beginning’s tasteful use of the studio and personal songs reflect an intimacy we’ve never seen in a Features show. The band has always been adept at presenting a band sound. This is no guitar-led-band. Keyboard, bass, drums, guitar and voice all weave through each other beautifully. “Two by Two” is the highlight with its joyful coda, but saying so shouldn’t diminish the perfect pop of the other four tracks. Get it.

[This essay originally appeared in the first print issue of Popshot Magazine and as a slightly different version in an issue of the American Spectator.]

the “Anti-Capitalists” Have It All Wrong
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