Kopecky Family Band - "Kids Raising Kids" CD Review (ATO Records) // Show at Mercury Lounge on May 16th

Nashville buzz-band Kopecky Family Band (KFB) just re-released their playfully exuberant eleven-track debut disc, Kids Raising Kids, via ATO Records. The new disc mixes foot-stomping orchestral pop with vocal harmonies and ringing guitars that sound straight from the 60’s Laurel Canyon scene.

While the band’s music will strike a familiar chord with fans of music collectives like Broken Social Scene and The Polyphonic Spree, KFB seems more willing to reach beyond the boundaries of the genre than some of their contemporaries and frequently utilize the ‘exploding’ verse-chorus-verse alt-rock song structure that become popular in the 90’s. A prime example of KFB’s balance between multiple genres is found in the first two songs on the disc. “Wandering Eyes” starts out with a melancholy orchestral arrangement, which shortly gives way to an anthemic stomp-along. This is followed by the disc’s first single, “Heartbeat”, which is a slinky dance number that brings back fond memories of DC’s Quix*o*tic. In the second half of the disc, the band throws in elements of shimmery, echo-drenched dream-pop, which help ease the listener down from the colossal high of the disc’s earlier tracks.





The bright, irrepressible songs on Kids Raising Kids deal with navigating waters of change and facing challenges, and also see the band challenging themselves by creating a bigger sound than anything they've done before. In an interview with Pop ‘stache, Kelsey Kopecky said that the “title [of the disc] came from an idea Markus [Midkiff] had. He has a little girl named Ella who’s three and a half and it made us think, it was just that idea of young people having kids. After we started playing with the idea, we realized it was more than that. At heart, we’re all kids raising kids in this world. We’re all in this together with this sharing of experiences."


Kopecky Family Band Tour Dates:

APR. 3 -- SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- BRICK AND MORTAR
APR. 4 -- LOS ANGELES, CA -- THE SATELLITE
APR. 5 -- SAN DIEGO, CA -- SODA BAR
APR. 6 -- PHOENIX, AZ -- PUB ROCK
APR. 8 -- ALBUQUERQUE, NM -- LOW SPIRITS
APR. 18 -- CLARKSVILLE, TN -- RIVERS AND SPIRES FESTIVAL
APR. 27 -- OXFORD, MS -- DOUBLE DECKER FESTIVAL
MAY 8 -- WASHINGTON, DC -- THE BLACK CAT*
MAY 9 -- PITTSBURGH, PA -- CLUB CAFÉ*
MAY 10 -- CHILLICOTHE, OH -- PAPER CITY MUSIC SERIES*
MAY 11 -- CINCINNATI, OH -- MOTR PUB*
MAY 14 -- CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA -- THE SOUTHERN
MAY 15 -- NEW HAVEN, CT -- BAR

MAY 16 NEW YORK, NY  -- MERCURY LOUNGE
Note: Tickets are $10 and doors are at 9:30PM (late show). Charlotte, NC’s Matrimony is opening the show.

MAY 18 -- ANNAPOLIS, MD -- RAM'S HEAD ON STAGE
MAY 20 -- ASHEVILLE, NC -- ISIS MUSIC HALL
JUN. 21-3 -- DOVER, DE -- FIREFLY MUSIC FESTIVAL
* supporting He's My Brother She's My Sister

Links:
Kopecky Family Band

Two Gallants - "The Bloom and The Blight" CD Review (ATO Records)

After an extended period of inactivity, San Francisco duo Two Gallants is back with their first album in five years – The Bloom and the Blight – which also serves as the band’s debut for ATO Records. Wikipedia refers to the band as a “folk rock duo” but there is an explosive record whose lineage is equal parts 90’s grunge (Meat Puppets and/or Dinosaur Jr. are immediate points of comparison) and gritty alt-country with only a slight element of Dylanish folk thrown into the mix. The aptly titled The Bloom and the Blight is a meditation on past and present – melodic fury matched with the eloquent, confessional lyricism that has made Two Gallants an enduring favorite of both fans and critics.

“Our past albums have been a lot more folk and blues-based, and I tried to move away from that to some extent,” guitarist/vocalist Adam Stephens says of the band’s fresh direction, “I wanted to find a rawness in the music and take us back where we’d come from, from punk rock and grunge in particular, to our childhood, in some ways. We had taken time off, and we did different things, played in different bands. And in doing those things, being apart and redefining ourselves in that way, we were able to come together with a fresh approach.”

A number of tracks on the disc follow a verse-chorus-verse structure with exploding choruses. The opening track, “Halycon Days”, kicks off the album on a strong note with a frenetic alt-rock number which builds up a fuzz-drenched wall of guitar noise on top of a sludgy bottom-end. This is followed by “Songs of Songs” which is an alt-country number with exploding choruses. There are a couple of other alt-country numbers on the disc – which includes “Willie”, an alt-country boot stomper – but the disc is weighted toward the fuzzed-out grunge of tracks like “Ride Away” and “Cradle Pyre”. The band keeps things fresh by switching gears with a whisky-blues/folk number on “Broken Eyes” (this disc’s first single), hazy psychedelic space rock on “Decay” and winds up the disc with the gritty acoustic number (which sounds somewhat like Beggars Banquet era Stones), “Sunday Souvenirs”.

The Bloom and the Blight will be released September 4th and the band is also heading out on an extensive tour in September, which includes shows at Bowery Ballroom and Music Hall of Williamsburg later in the month. Pre-orders for the new LP come with a bonus 7 inch record that includes a cover of Abner Jay's "I'm so Depressed" on the A side and on the B side an etched in design drawn by Tyson.

Two Gallants’ September 2012 Tour Dates
1: Los Angeles, California / FYF Fest
2: San Diego, California / The Casbah
4: Tucson, Arizona / Club Congress
5: Phoenix, Arizona / Crescent Ballroom
7: Dallas, Texas / House of Blues
8: Austin, Texas / 29th Street Ballroom
9: Houston, Texas / Fitzgerald's
10: New Orleans, Louisiana / One Eyed Jacks
11: Birmingham, Alabama / The Bottletree Café
12: Atlanta, Georgia / Terminal West
13: Asheville, North Carolina / Grey Eagle
14: Nashville, Tennessee / The High Watt @ Americana Music Festival
15: St. Louis, Missouri / Plush
17: Cincinnati, Ohio / MOTR Pub
18: Bloomington, Indiana / The Bishop
19: Cleveland, Ohio / Beachland Tavern
20: Buffalo, New York / The Ninth Ward


24: New York, New York / Bowery Ballroom
PAPA is opening the show and advanced tickets are $20

25: Brooklyn, New York / Music Hall of Williamsburg
PAPA is opening the show and advanced tickets are $20

Links:
Two Gallants

Two Gallants Release "My Love Won't Wait" (Free Download) from Forthcoming CD, The Bloom and the Blight

Alternately explosive and restrained, the aptly titled The Bloom and the Blight is a meditation on past and present – melodic fury matched with the eloquent, confessional lyricism that has made Two Gallants an enduring favorite of both fans and critics. Capturing the sound of a new beginning, the duo’s ATO Records debut The Bloom and the Blight celebrates the band’s much anticipated reunion following a multi-year break. It is the work of Two Gallants, fully matured, the band fearlessly exploring new ground in search of a sound that defines a very personal catharsis.

“We’ve both gone through some hard stuff personally, so this album has that element of the cathartic, of a release of tension,” explains Adam Stephens (guitar/vocals), “We had taken time off, and we did different things, played in different bands. And in doing those things, being apart and redefining ourselves in that way, we were able to come together with a fresh approach.”



That approach includes everything from the distorted ferocity of “Halcyon Days” to the heart-wrenching acoustic ballad, “Sunday Souvenirs”. Songs like “Ride Away” boast all the prowling, anthemic strut of classic metal; while tracks like “Winter’s Youth” start sweet and sad, than shatter into huge and heavy choruses. The album’s first single, “Broken Eyes,” has already become a crowd favorite with its raw, aching harmonies and weeping harmonica.



“Our past albums have been a lot more folk and blues-based, and I tried to move away from that to some extent,” Stephens says of the band’s fresh direction, “I wanted to find a rawness in the music and take us back where we’d come from, from punk rock and grunge in particular, to our childhood, in some ways.”

Friends since they were five, the band grew up playing music together, from early teen-age house parties in their hometown of San Francisco, to multiple world tours. Throughout their extensive travels over the past 8 years – including recent tours through China and South Korea – Two Gallants have continued to evolve, both musically and personally.

The bands’ very first single, “Nothing to You” (from their 2004 debut The Throes), started off a string of cult classics that helped define their signature sound. The success of the sophomore album, What the Toll Tells (2006), delivered a few more singles, including “Steady Rollin’” and “Las Cruces Jail”. The wistful “Seems Like Home to Me” from "The Scenery of Farewell" EP (2007) and “Despite What You’ve Been Told” from 2007’s self-titled album, provide the framework of the bands development into The Bloom and the Blight.

“This record is important for us – as a next step,” explains Tyson Vogel (drums/vocals), “It’s a passage into adulthood in a lot of ways. We had a hiatus of a few years, and each of us went through things that we had to go through. This record breaks the silence.” In many ways, The Bloom and the Blight reflects the separate journeys of the duo during these past years apart. We hear Vogel finding his own distinct musical voice on the guitar-driven track he penned for the record, “Decay”. “It’s about a fissure of self,” he says of the song, “how things you can’t control, can wound your heart.” And everywhere on The Bloom and the Blight is an urgent, emotional poignancy, a visceral undercurrent that stems, in part, from Stephens’ experience recovering from his injuries after a serious van accident. “I wasn’t able to play guitar or piano for about four months,” he remembers, “but I started writing songs for the record as soon as I was healthy enough.”

Recorded by John Congleton (Explosions In The Sky, Modest Mouse, St. Vincent) at the legendary Fantasy Studios in Berkeley and Tiny Telephone in San Francisco, the sound of The Bloom and the Blight is nothing less than epic. The duo roars and sweeps, guitar and drums fusing into something larger than life. “He’s an artist in his own right,” Vogel says of Congleton, “he put his own emotional investment into the songs. And as a result, he took us to another level.”

Indeed. The Bloom and the Blight is Two Gallants not only pushing themselves to that next level, but also exploring a multitude of new directions along the way. “We went on different paths these past years,” explains Vogel, “but I think we share a common feeling, a commitment to try to transcend what we’ve gone through…and build something stronger out of it.”



Links:
Two Gallants