They play not-very-interesting mid-tempo rock with a halfway decent sense of hooks and frequent obliging nods to Lennon/McCartney, Lou Reed, and Tom Verlaine.
At their best, they resemble X with two Exenes. At their most neutral, they toss off an okay alt-country jangle. At their worst, they’re AOR radio schmucks.
Explosive guitar, beefy vocals that pour like syrup on a sundae and sometimes snarl like metal scraping concrete, and beats that bop, slam, and move your butt.
Like a group of cupcake-eaters racing for the slide, these four shout it out. But with musicianship this good, their childvoices project them into cultdom.
Three terrific bands, one small-yet-sweet package. Appleseed Cast reminds everyone that storytelling and conceptual lyric-writing is still a vital art form.
Sometimes there’s rhythm; other times feedback fuzz, chatter, and galactic landing noise grinds against itself like someone’s playing with the radio dial.
Ness does a credible job of rockin’ the pre-Big E jukebox selection of hard country and hillbilly music. Credit for not pickin’ out the obvious selections.