WEDNESDAY 3/18: Rolo Tomassi (Cannibal Cheerleader), Past Lives and These Arms Are Snakes (Red Eyed Fly)

I was let down by Rolo Tomassi at the Cannibal Cheerleader day party in East Austin. I hadn’t heard them before, but positive reviews compared them to Mars Volta. Turns out they’re strong instrumentalists who are immature songwriters and performers. Normally I’m a fan of frenetic music, but they had absolutely no song structure at all. Add the seriously contrived dancing on top and I was rolling my eyes by the 2nd song…but I do understand the appeal of badass young bands with crazy technique. I’d check out Fall of Troy instead - they earned their hype with Doppelganger.

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Past Lives at Red Eyed Fly, Austin TX 3/18

I was pleasantly surprised as I approached the Red Eyed Fly on Wednesday evening. I was gearing up for the raucous These Arms Are Snakes show I’ve come to expect, when I recognized two Indian dudes on stage setting up with openers Past Lives. As I struggled to place them, one of two vocalists for the Blood Brothers took the stage, and I realized they were his cohorts from the Seattle post-hardcore band. I liked them a lot as a kid. Their instrumentation was just cool enough to make up for the squeels of two overly dramatic vocalists (Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon is a good example):
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Blood Brothers - Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon
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Past Lives has retained much of the dynamic that I originally liked about the Blood Brothers, but they’ve become more mature. Their work is less chaotic and more fluid than BB, allowing time for the music to develop a trance-like intensity that ebbs and flows. Blood Brothers’ squeely-ass vocals served as a backdrop for teen angst, but Past Lives feels more mature - subdued and amplified in all the right places. I’ll be listening to them for a while (their debut EP is called Strange Symmetry).

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These Arms Are Snakes at Red Eyed Fly, Austin TX 3/18

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Live Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.