Southeast Engine, Frontier Ruckus, The Coke Dares, The Kyle Sowashes - Treehouse

With four bands on a bill, it’s more than likely one of them is going to be a dud, or at least have an off night. But the Treehouse was four for four on Friday night.

The main event was the release of Athens, Ohio’s Southeast Engine newest offering, From the Forest to the Sea. As I mentioned last week, it’s a record full of spiritual yearning and self-condemnation, and it’s also one of the best albums released so far this year. What struck me most about Southeast Engine’s indie-folk live is how well bassist Jesse Remnant’s tenor harmonies complement singer (and brother) Adam Remnant’s wonderfully crackled voice--one filled with meandering eccentricities that wouldn’t be easy to harmonize. Watching the Remnants belt out the melodies in fraternal sync was one of my favorite parts of the night.

The set was heavy with new stuff, and I liked the loose, spacious feeling the live setting lent to the songs. Foot-tapping rockers like “Black Gold” and more restrained numbers like “Law-Abiding Citizen” and “From the Roots of the Mountains to Your Holy Temple” came together superbly beneath the Treehouse lights.

Taking the stage before Southeast Engine was Michigan band Frontier Ruckus, a stylistically perfect choice to go with the Remnants and company. I only caught a few songs, but it was enough to convince me to pick up the band’s debut full-length, The Orion Songbook. I highly recommend it. After listening to it the morning after the show, I couldn’t wait to press play and start it all over again. That doesn’t happen very often.

Songwriter Matthew Millia has created a bunch of folk-inspired songs about the mythological Orion Town, and the band fleshes out his singular voice and imaginative, literate lyrics with deft acoustic guitar, singing saw, trumpet, banjo and lovely female harmonies. The songs, whether “Bethlehem” or “Adirondack Amish Holler,” convey a vivid sense of place. Really good stuff.

The second half of the night was a completely different style of show. Part II was jovial, with significantly less weighty subject matter--just lots of laughs and endless energy. The Coke Dares, from Bloomington, Ind., had one of the most original sets I’ve ever seen and were laugh-out-loud funny. Until the last song, the trio, wearing black T-shirts that said “The,” “Coke” and “Dares,” respectively, didn’t play one song longer than about a minute and 30 thirty seconds. Some were even under 30 seconds, but each one packed a punch. It wasn’t rare to have a song’s title contain the majority of the lyrics, e.g. “I’m Gonna Love You Like a Hot Teen.”

Meditate, if you will, on “Wood,” which clocked in at about 30 seconds: “If you’re gonna make it, make it good, you’re gonna wanna make it outta wooooood.” “Tour Rot” told the (brief) story of playing at Bernie’s when one of two people at the show threw up at the band’s feet. “Rocking all the Time” told of the band’s love for whiskey, pills, wine and, of course, rocking all the time. With a sound that’s aptly been described as a mix of Guided By Voices and the Ramones, you’d never know these dudes also play in Magnolia Electric Co.

The most shocking and hilarious moment of the set came as the band wrapped up its supposedly last song, and then launched into an extended version of Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” with lots of faux endings along the way. It also proved singer Jason Groth is a ridiculously talented guitarist. I can’t say I’d listen to these guys on record a whole lot, but I advise you not to miss an opportunity to see them live.

The Kyle Sowashes kept the energy level high, as is their custom. I think everything Sowash does translates better live, in a whirlwind of guitar, beard and thick, black-rimmed glasses. “My Resume” from last year’s Yeah Buddy! sounded great, and all the more applicable lyrically because of what people like to call “the current economic climate.” And Sowash’s everyman goofiness shone through on “Rumours”: “When I was small, I had it bad for Stevie Nicks/ I just stared at the back of Fleetwood Mac until the age of six.”

The strong set of Sowash-stamped, throwback indie rock was a fitting finish to a night of unusually good music.

mp3: Southeast Engine - Black Gold
Southeast Engine Daytrotter Session
mp3: The Coke Dares - Wood

Southeast Engine - From the Forest to the Sea

Adam Remnant is a tortured soul. The singer of Athens, Ohio, band Southeast Engine revealed that on 2007’s A Wheel Within a Wheel, and he’s done it again on From the Forest to the Sea. The proof is in his tattered, tremulous voice, but it’s in his lyrics even more.

As on Wheel, Remnant vents his frustration through a spiritual lens, one that doesn’t have even a hint of a rose-colored tint. The record is chock full of Biblical allusions and allegory and probably other applicable words that begin with “a,” but the religiosity is never oppressive. It’s the fabric Remnant uses to reveal his shortcomings. He shows us a world that is broken and full of evil, and he wants everyone to know he’s the worst offender.

The album opens with three-part suite “The Forest,” which finds the anti-hero emerging from a wedding ceremony (possibly doubling as a funeral) and heading into the woods. “I said I wouldn’t do no evil, but evil’s just what I’ve done,” Remnant admits, and by part II there’s already talk of “broken vows.” Gorgeous piano eventually crescendos in part III. “Here I am now rising!” he exclaims, but the heavenly ascent is cut short when an outstretched arm from above turns him away.

The rest of the record mixes similar imagery with real-life details while the black cloud of an extramarital affair hangs menacingly over most songs, many of which bleed into the other; From the Forest to the Sea flows like a rolling landscape from beginning to end.

In “Black Gold,” Remnant can’t even talk about the pitfalls of the coal industry without relating it to a mistress--“Every time that she’s ignored she knocks louder on your door.” Noah’s great flood also shows up, churning and battering Remnant further. But he again makes it clear he’s no Christ type: “I can’t be walking on water when my shadow weighs a ton.”

Southeast Engine elicits fewer early Wilco comparisons these days. Still, amid the saloon piano, carnival organs and crunchy guitars, that malleable “Americana” signifier still seems to fit. And as with most concept albums, this record isn’t immediately accessible. It takes a few spins to let the metanarrative sink in. And while there aren’t many traditional song structures here, they’re still singable and become progressively addictive.

There’s a little sliver of light on the last song of the album, “From the Roots of the Mountains to Your Holy Temple.” As Remnant/the protagonist’s life is coming to an end at the bottom of the sea, his blood will become oil, greedy men will find him and “it’ll be up and out through the tunnel to rise into the sky.” It’s redemption in a sense, but a mucky one, because while we know that he’s headed toward the temple, Remnant never tells us if that outstretched arm brings him into the fold this time around. Spiritually, his journey isn’t over, and that bodes well for Southeast Engine musically. To steal a slogan, Remnant’s pain is our gain.

Southeast Engine’s Columbus release show is tonight at the Treehouse with the Kyle Sowashes, the Coke Dares and Frontier Ruckus.

mp3: Southeast Engine - Black Gold

(Also at The Other Paper.)

Hodge Podge

-- "We are beautiful, we are doomed." That's the title of one of Los Campesinos!' two albums released in 2008, and it's also a fitting description of the band's show with Titus Andronicus at the Wexner Center last Wednesday. Titus Andronicus has no qualms airing their grievances in a tortured, messy way, thrashing around the stage with the punk vigor and reckless abandon that can only come from New Jersey youth. And boy did they look straight outta study hall. Or, probably more accurately, detention. They're definitely too young to be singing "I don't think I've ever been so tired of life," but the fact that they don't realize that made the near-trainwreck all the more fascinating to hear and watch. Los Campesinos! cloaked similar sentiments in more playful melodies, equal parts beauty and doom. I loved the boy-girl vocals, the excessive use of xylophone, the spoken rants, the Welsh accents, and, above all, the exuberance. This is the first band to earn the explanation point at the end of its name.

-- Watching Times New Viking tackle tunes from the Velvet Underground on Saturday night at the Wexner Center was bizarrely entertaining. In one way, it's fitting for art kids like TNV to re-appropriate and pay tribute to art-rock forefathers like the Velvets. But it's also shocking to see TNV play a song for more than two minutes, much less to engage in a droney jam. It made for a (mostly) pretty fun hour, though. Full review in next week's Other Paper.

-- I admittedly wouldn't know about Other Lives if I hadn't received a PR e-mail blast about them. But they're playing a show tonight at the Basement, opening up for the Delta Spirit. It's mopey but pretty stuff, so fans of Hayden, Strand of Oaks and even Coldplay and Elbow should find something to enjoy.

-- Athens, Ohio boys Southeast Engine released one of my favorite albums of 2007, A Wheel Within a Wheel. I think I'm a sucker for alliterative biblical lyrics, but that aside, I also think it's (post?)modern Americana at its best. There's a new album, From the Forest to the Sea, out tomorrow. I'm reserving judgment on that one till I give it a few more listens--review coming Thursday in the Other Paper--but check out Southeast Engine's album release show this Friday at the Treehouse with the Kyle Sowashes, the Coke Dares and Frontier Ruckus.

Southeast Engine

After releasing its third album on Misra Records last October, Athens, Ohio group Southeast Engine has finally been deemed worthy of a review by Pitchfork. Better late than never, I guess. A Wheel Within a Wheel, the title of which is a biblical reference to a trippy vision in Ezekiel, is absolutely stellar--probably one of the most overlooked albums in 2007. I still have no qualms about including it in my top five from last year.

Fortunately for the arty, alt.-country indie rockers, P-fork gave it a respectable 7.1. What's the difference between 7 and 7.1 you ask? Nothing. Still, love 'em or hate 'em, Pitchfork can make or break a band, and I hope they end up making this one. I particularly like this description in the review: "A Wheel Within a Wheel is more complex than the average Christian rock tract. The Biblical/religious imagery running throughout the disc doesn't tip the group's hand so much as provide the album a fruitful thematic framework as Remnant shouts into the abyss in search of answers."

For a better review, though, Paste's Andy Whitman wrote about the band a while back here (scroll down to Dec. 15).

Here in Ohio, you can catch Southeast Engine at the Nelsonville Art & Music Festival, along with the Avett Brothers, Akron/Family, Moviola, O'Death, Justin Townes Earle and others, May 16-18.

mp3: Southeast Engine - Oh God, Let Me Back In