Thursday 7 June 2007
The Drams w/ The Bottlerockets
The Drams had to cancel their previous planned show with Will Hoge back in January due to weather. They promised they would make it up to us, and here they are!
A review from their website has this to say about The Drams latest album:
Jam packed with brawny, spirited, hands-in-the-air rockers, stirring anthems and harrowing ventures exploring a culture sapped by hollow heroes and soul-killing, high-tech crapola, The Drams careen out of Texas with Jubilee Dive—a welcome jolt of rockyroll that is fresh and vital even as it flaunts an effortless command of time-tested rock maneuvers.
Fronted by singer/songwriter/guitarist Brent Best, The Drams’ lineup merges lead guitarist Jess Barr and drummer Tony Harper (from Best’s long-running, alt-everything mavericks, Slobberbone) with singer/keyboardist Chad Stockslager and singer/bassist Keith Killoren (both from Dallas’ Budapest One), and while fans of Best’s previous work won’t be thrown completely for a loop, The Drams’ soaring vocal harmonies, expanded instrumental range and ebullient, hook-laden rock’n’pop adventurousness have taken it all to a new, invigorating level.
Best readily acknowledges that Stockslager and Killoren’s vocal capabilities—along with the former’s sterling work on keys—have greatly extended his artist’s palette and enabled him to demonstrate finesse and subtlety in ways he’d previously only dreamt about.
“The real upside is having people who can sing our sound with me,” he states, “and just finally being able to touch upon all the things I’ve always wanted to touch upon, but never really had all the resources to make it happen.”
Produced by Matt Pence (Centro-matic, South San Gabriel), Jubilee Dive is an ambitious, 14-song tour-de-force that jumps out of the gate with “The Truth Lies Low,” an outwardly up-beat, Trojan horse of a raver that aims a scathing diatribe at a society which has allowed its individuality and creativity to be co-opted by bells-and-whistles technology and lemming-like consumerism.
“I was trying, on the whole, to make this a lighter, more hopeful album,” Best confesses, laughing. “But to me, we live in a time when people have just gotten so used to bullshit on every level that you can spew utter bullshit—and be called on it!—and then just go, ‘well, here’s the next bullshit,’ and somehow, that’s okay.” But bullshit doesn’t play here: The Drams are drilling for the jugular with no punches pulled.
THE BOTTLE ROCKETS remain one of the most steel-solid bands amongst the greatest of rural-rock trailblazers. The St. Louis, Missouri outfit long regarded and adored as THE workingman’s rock band have hit a creative high water mark with a new homecoming record that is at once their most spirited and finely honed.
Zoysia is the latest sample of the Bottle Rockets’ tenaciousness, their eighth album and second release on Bloodshot Records. Produced by Jeff Powell at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis and captured largely in two or three takes in a city with its own kind of groove. Coming out on the heels of a litany of knee-jerking changes measuring 4-years deep, this album finds the band (Brian Henneman - guitar/ vocals, Mark Ortmann - drums, John Horton - guitar, and newest and final member, Keith Voegele - bass/vocals) the proudest they’ve ever been of any other recorded works.
The Bottle Rockets channel some serious cascading Crazy Horse squall, they nail the scruffy romantic, dirty fingernail rock of the Midwest and soak up the soulful vibes that ooze from the cement blocks in Memphis studios. Lyrically, the band’s underdog outlook finds the optimism and the resignation behind worlds faraway, or just on the other side of the screen door. Add it all up and what you get is something that’s all its own, something that is pure Bottle Rockets.