Strung

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Strung

The High Strung site
and on Bandcamp

I know that we're in a basement, that the ceiling looms, stiflingly just six inches over my skull as I stand beside a thin beam, some uneven tile and a large, blaring amplifier. I know it's just another day. And, I know that this is only a rehearsal - but this sounds like The. Perfect. Rock. Song.
Or, at least, A perfect rock song... brought to life by a band that just knows how to do it...

Been doing it, really, for 15 years. So they oughta know...

There's no samples to stream, yet, for the songs on The High Strung's seventh album I, Anybody, so you'll just have to imagine the aural equivalent of base rock n' roll, with its kicking back beat, waving chords and cresting choruses, lionized into a ballet, on-point, arched, twirled and taut - where the suspense inherent to a crude punk outfit fraying their strings off the neck and missing downbeats threatening to have the song fall to pieces before it can realize its beauty, is now a novelty more than a decade behind these guys. They're savvier in their song-making, sure, but it's something more mysterious - like the weird telepathy akin to brotherliness. You wanna make a song together? Let's make a song together... A song about changing, about new points of view, about being awake all night, sleeping all day and having some kind of rattling re-awakening altogether.

I, Anybody
by
The High Strung

I, Anybody will be an album that runs up to your door, flings it opens, pulls you outside and leads you by the hand, initiating, imploring, declaring with a downplayed shout, that the time is now, so can we get on with it?

Its lyrical themes and propulsive tempos, its mustering of major keys and warm tones and all its cresting crescendos suggest the charting of new course. These aren’t drums you could dance to, but you could certainly run with them, caper and pogo, even. Pianos and percussive bells bring a cheery radiance that garnish reverb-sopped guitar solos and silky bass swirls. Now, this makes I, Anybody sound as it it may be something overly exuberant, but not so much – it’s more like an assuring Eureka! An exhale...that's trundled out with feedback and bass-drums.

At this point, they've amassed an imposing amount of chemistry that burns brightly, right off the record, with cool charisma. They’re not about to waste their time or yours making disingenuous, clichéd or perfunctory record of faux-soul-searching. They’ve got their craft, their character and their karma firmly grasped.