I wont lie to you guys. I am new to the Indianapolis Scene. Yes, I have heard about a lot of these bands, but I haven't heard them. But you know this last month and a half I've experienced a lot more. I've been glad to have this opportunity and I really hope that you guys enjoy my outsider's opinion. Anyways this brings me to this weeks band.
MARMOSET
I've seen Karl wear their T-shirts, I knew they played shows, I knew the band's name is actually a cute little monkey. But I had never got a chance to go to one of their shows, Hear any of their records, etc. That changed last weekend. It was at the Impossible Shapes last show and Marmoset was opening. I was far in the back of the venue and honestly couldn't say I was really paying attention. I know that sounds lame, but it was really hot and crowded and my anxiety of the situation distracted me. I do remember one song though and I thought that it was pretty catchy.
Fast-forward to Wednesday night, I am off of work and I went to Karl Hoffsetter's house to help put stickers on the new Marmoset CD, I tell him that I went to their show but really had never listened to them before. He wanted that to change immediately. We listened to some older albums and as a present for helping him I recieved a copy of their upcoming LP "Tea Tornado"
Thursday morning I popped the CD in my car on the way to work. I listened to it twice in a row. I was so impressed! First off as you can tell by my reviews, I am a super sucker for good simple drumming. And Marmoset draws me right in on every single track of this album. The drums are upfront and move the songs along so well. They don't just give the songs rhythm they actually give the songs dynamics and are something really hard not to pay attention to.
But it isn't the drums that make or break this album. Its well done on all fronts. The vocals are hard to really pin down to any sort of particular style, but I hear a lot of different influences that all merge together into a very original way. If there is something that bugs me the most about bands is if their vocalist sounds EXACTLY some other band.
One thing that i really liked about this album is that it all guitar heavy. Everything is really minimal and nothing is really overpowering anything else. Sometimes its easy to just layer and layer and I love it when a band can just strip away and leave the bare essentials. The bass and Keyboard parts come in perfectly and just seem to fit in perfectly...nothing sounds out of place.
Overall the sound seems all over the place, spanning genres, decades and other musical trends. And this mixture of old and new really makes it seem fresh and give the impression that they really know what they are doing and what they want to sound like. If i had any comparison it would be kind of what Elephant 6 does, mixing old and new but keeping it fresh.
Anyways thats it for my review, I pretty much can sum it up in one sentence. "Go listen to it when it comes out in stores, trust me you wont regret it." I am excited to see them live now that I'm more familiar with their work, It took only 2 days and I'm already a really big fan. I cant seem to get this album out of my head.
Go get it when it comes out on my birthday August 4th. (that link also has a link to a song from this release)
And check out the bands MFT archive page here
See ya next week!
-Justin
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