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White Rabbits
It's a panicky moment whenever I'm hard-pressed to describe a band, especially since I'm listening to (or thinking about) music for a good part of each day. You know how it goes: someone asks, What are you listening to? And you say, I've found this new great band. And they sound like X without Y and with Z instead.
But for the White Rabbits, from Brooklyn, NY via Columbia, MO? Dressed in picture-perfect buttoned-down dress shirts and mod-ish V-necked sweaters, the band radiates coolness. Live, they're a six-headed monster of sound, momentum, and impressive coordination. But musicially, if you asked me what they sound like, only a mere trickle of words flows out. The closest touchpoints I can even think to give are Cold War Kids, but sans chug and Nathan Willett's constant bellowing, or even old-school Walkmen, given the reliance on piano, sonic atmospherics, and a strong comparability to Hamilton Leithauser's infamous snarl. But even those comparisons seem shallow in relationship to the band's creativity and passion.
It's been while since I've felt confident in pointing out a young band's hunger and ambition. Well, folks, this is it. The White Rabbits are hungry. They will chase after you. They will kidnap your children. (Probably not, but it sure feels like it.)
The sound is jangly rock with frantic intensity, driving basslines, sultry vocals, a swaggering organ that adds a hint of calypso, and the occasional ska flare when the saxophone appears. (The band even namechecks the Specials in their bio.) Not to mention the crowning achievement: double drummers and double vocalists, somehow in perfect harmony. Even with a myriad of parts, the White Rabbits manage an impressive, infectious lockstep groove that I could listen to all day. White Rabbits are pitch perfect blue-eyed indie soul crammed into rock'n'roll musical firecrackers.
(Apparently the songs I am about to post below are possibly the unmastered versions from several months back and won't appear on the album in this state.)
White Rabbits - The Plot
White Rabbits - Kid On My Shoulders
Official web site. Fort Nightly will be out on Say Hey Records on May 22.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row at 02.26.07 at 12:35 PM
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