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Friday, 23 July 2010

Lotus Effect * Opposite Day *
Dune, TX * Letters To Voltron

Lotus Effect - (Houston, TX ) Lotus Effect Channel Soul Asylum, Shakespeare On Rabbits And Royalties EP OK, in your head, we want you to picture Soul Asylum. No, not "Runaway Train." We mean the energy, angsty effervescence of something like "Somebody to Shove." Wed that haunting voice and throbbing guitars to a mild prog-rock sensibility and you have Lotus Effect's EP, Rabbits and Royalties. The release contains four hard-rocking anthems dedicated to death and the pain of both being gone and being left behind. Now, the songs might be just the teensiest, tiniest bit too long for the increasingly ADD-addled music aficionados that make up the modern radio consumer, but maybe that extra minute and a half is the line between what is popular and what is truly epic. The release is well-read in pop culture and classic lit. "Warhol" starts the album with an aching invocation to Edie Sedgwick, one of Andy Warhol's muses, while "Mercucio" (misspelling aside) retells the tale of Romeo and Juliet louder and more painfully than Baz Luhrmann could have hoped to. In fact, the majority of the album is a screaming audio obelisk to loss. Loss of heroes, loves, lives, and everything between and beyond. And while "Warhol" and "Mercucio" speak of public mournings, it's the personal power of "Simple Pages" and "Fireflies" (particularly the acoustic version of the latter that ends the EP) that will make you realize that Lotus Effect is one of those acts whose music will forever mark a page in your life's book. What Muse once was, and now only pretends to be, Lotus Effect is. Jef With One F., Houston Press

Opposite Day- (Austin, TX)  WHAT IS AN OPPOSITE DAY? "what the Beatles might have sounded like if they'd been part of the video game generation" - David Brown of Texas Music Matters (4/11/09), KUT Austin 90.5fm Blending art-rock, pop, experimental, math, jazz, and punk sounds with an absurdist academic childish lyrical fetish, Opposite Day has ratcheted up the aggressive pop tension and loosened the stylistic standards for Austin’s music scene for the last 8 years. WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE? Music Mastodon would write for Spoon to play. Music Frank Zappa would write for the Dead Kennedys to play. Music Steely Dan would write for Bad Brains to play. The burp after Faith no More eats Of Montreal. Brown Whornet covering Talking Heads. Dr Seuss writing lyrics for a Fishbone/Meshuggah supergroup. Paul McCartney and Mike Patton’s latest collaboration. The exact midpoint between Cannibal Corpse and Linda Ronstadt.

Dune, TX- (Houston, TX.) dUNETX reigns as the lone rock band in Houston to keep shoveling out the tunes for 12+ years. Three albums later and a handful of ep's, the band is still writing, playing, and putting out catchy guitar rock. A writer wrote recently, "If there is a local rock N roll "Hall Of Fame" dUNETX should be inducted. Not bad! The bands live show is what has been drawing fans in for years. High energy shows that are part rockNroll, part comedy act. The band has played shows with bands like The Lemonheads, Spoon, Violent Femmes, Rev Horton Heat, Fastball, Better Than Ezra, Goo Goo Dolls, The Posies, Jerry Cantrell, Seether, The Presidents of the USA, Local H, Superdrag, Steve Burns, French Kicks, KingsX, Bowling For Soup, Royal Trux, plus a ton of cool local and regional bands over the years like the Deathray Davies, Funland, Burden Brothers, Dash Rip Rock, Tablet, Ben Kweller. One music mag writer said this. . . . . dUNETX is the perfect combination of bubblegum pop and pure rock fury.The band remains perhaps Houston's most overlooked outfit. Sure, they've gotten their props in the press and are "respected" by the scene and all. But something this big needs mass exposure. -cs And more press . . . . What's best about this band is there is no sense of pretension. dUNETX's songs are fun songs -- songs geared more toward an audience who is discriminating in its musical tastes. Throw in some Weezer, a smidgen of The Beach Boys, and some early Nineties indie rock -- specifically Smashing Pumpkins' Gish and maybe some Fig Dish, Bob Mould, and Blake Babies -- and you get a glimpse of what dUNETX sounds like. Goldenarm might very well be this summer's party record -- I can't imagine college kids across the nation not having this on at some point during the day. - dc   .. Plus... .. The bands 1999 release "Machowagon" and 2005 release "Goldenarm" were engineered and co produced by friend Steve Ames of Moving Sidewalks, ZZ Top, and Kings X fame.

Letters To Voltron- (Spring, TX.) Raised by wolves in the Canadian wilderness, Letters to Voltron began their quest to conquer the world through auto-erotic acoustical stylings and homemade macramé. Shortly after being introduced into modern society the two, Robert Callicotte and John Wayne Comunale, abandoned the macramé and started their own internet company at the age of twelve only to have it fold after six and a half months. Leaving thousands of disgruntled shareholders in their wake the two pressed on in several other musical endeavors, including being loosely associated with Taint Magazine for a very short time. For the past year Letters to Voltron have been blazing a lemony path through Houston and the surrounding areas with a fiery blend of music, humor, passion, innuendo, and retarded sexuality that must be experienced to be understood . . . or not. The band has released a self titled album with Omega Prophet Music available exclusively through them.

Last Update Friday 18 June, 2010