With an untitled EP released through Anjuno, The Rock and the Hive crafts some of the most fun indie I've heard locally in a long time. This EP weaves feel-good mellow rock and stoner-indie, reminiscent at times of everyone from Silversun Pickups and the Shins to Rod Stewart and the Pumpkins' more mellow stuff. While this album doesn't take a lot of risks musically and sounds a little... "familiar," TRATH (?) have a sound that is so damn agreeable, it makes it hard to hold it against them. The road-trippy first track, "Icharus Roadmaps," has a that catchy, head-bobby toe-tappiness that I love... and after that, I was pretty much hooked. Though they are at no point "edgy," they do, eventually, delve into slightly less-sunny places, notably on the sober, sullen "Three By Three:" bookended by an ambient intro and outro, the song itself seems to emerge from a noisy fog, unfolding and eventually disappearing back into it, in a way that feels magically lucid.
They even play the country-indie card on "(Untitled)" (wtf guys? start naming stuff) and even then I can't get mad at them... The Rock and the Hive are one of those bands who have created a sound that you can wake-n-bake to and listen to with your grandma with equal comfort and appropriateness. Their noncontroversial versatility seems to be working out for them: TRATH have gained a noticeable local following, and even landed a gig with U.K. act the Arctic Monkeys (along with fellow K-zoo band Dead Scene Radio) in September.
While this album breaks little ground, the Rock and the Hive pull it off with fluent musicianship and lyrics that are thoughtful without coming off as brooding... As far as four-track demos go, they pretty much nailed it. More, please?
-thejunkie
[Download at http://www.anjuno.com/profile/therockandthehive]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment