Rock

Rustic Overtones: New Way Out

Sam

Days of the New

The orchestral stylings of Rustic Overtones 2.0

When drummer Tony McNaboe delivered the burned copy of Rustic Overtones’ New Way Out, he tucked it inside the packaging of the re-released and re-mastered Long Division, the band’s first proper album, complete with horn section and keyboardist Spencer Albee. It’s fitting, as New Way Out is the first proper album by Overtones 2.0, post Albee and seemingly with a brand-new string section, present on each of the album’s 13 tracks.

It would seem that 2008’s Light at the End was just that, the end of an era, despite it having been released to trumpet the band’s reunion. There is no doubt that New Way Out is again appropriately named, a record that, for all its Dave Gutter-penned lyrics and Tony McNaboe-pounded skins and Jon Roods-plucked bass, is far from that core of primal energy that launched that band and drove it to its many heights (and then became Paranoid Social Club, though we’ll get to that in a bit).

In its place is a textured and dense amalgam of the collected band’s many tastes and endeavors – the funky soul of Zoidis’ Soulive; the gentle orchestral waves of Dave Noyes’ Seekonk; Jason Ward’s concert band roots; Gutter’s sedate solo work with Evan Casas – as captured in a practice space cum recording studio presided over largely by Roods. Finally endowed with a freedom to start from scratch, unencumbered by manager, producer, or label, and armed with some 15 years of experience as professional musicians, they have crafted what is clearly their most important artistic work, though it may be at the expense of some of the fire and brimstone that once drove their fans’ frenzy.

The band’s hits – “Simple Song,” “Check,” “Combustible,” “Iron Boots,” “Rock Like War,” “C’Mon,” even “Hardest Way Possible,” to an extent – have largely featured a Gutter at his most urgent and strident. I can barely picture him live without seeing his eyes smashed shut, his spine ruler straight and muscles taut, his fist punching the air.

That pose makes but few appearances on New Way Out. For me, the band have always lived and died with Gutter; now I and many others are experiencing him in a new sublimated role. Rustic haven’t quite become the Borg, but they are as much of a cohesive unit as you’ve ever heard them.

This may be because there are so many of them it can be hard for any one person to stand out. The liner notes list no fewer than 29 musicians that lend talent to the record (and you thought Spencer’s School Spirit Mafia was big…). And for that matter, the band members wear tons of hats. Roods alone gets credit for “upright + electric bass, keys, percussion, vibraphone, bells, guitar, vox, vacuum, wd-40, broom, delay.” I’m not even sure if a couple of those are jokes. The songs are so layered there could be virtually anything in there.

Rustic are fully invested and unapologetic, though. The opening track is the title track, coming to life with rising orchestral surge as from a Broadway musical and moving to a languid chorus: “I found a new way out/ If you don’t want to make a change, you should shut your mouth.”

With that statement made, however, they move into a “Drive My Car” Beatles take called “Everybody Needs to Be Somebody’s Friend,” where the horns again bleet, Gutter takes a more swaggering approach, and “whoo-hoo-hoo” backing vocals punctuate the verse. Here’s where you might notice Albee’s absence, though. He may have added harmony in the chorus, and probably would have pushed to popify the chorus as well, instead of ending it moving downward to make it more bluesy. As it is, the finish is dark and brooding, meditative before washing away into static.

“Nuts and Bolts” doesn’t get any sunnier, with a goth intro full of cello transposed with a fluttering flute, accompanied by a narrative of a woman who’s been caught in a car accident, and now has “sutures in her skin/ Like tracks for tiny little trains.” Nor does “Like the Blues,” a sprawling and lugubrious ballad that features a somewhat rare extended guitar solo from Gutter, crunchy and gritty against the purity of the backing strings. At just under seven minutes, it’s been trimmed significantly from the 10-minute-plus version they previewed for me in the practice space one temperate summer evening. “Can’t Shake You” has a bit of Wilco-style rock mid-song, and some soulful female backing vocals, but generally lounges out to five minutes of ballad.

Even the more upbeat tunes don’t exactly rock out. “All Together” is an us-against-the-world anthem, cool as hell as Gutter and Nigel Hall trade riffs in the verse to create a feel like Gnarls Barkley doing “Crazy” with the full orchestra at the 2007 Grammys. “Downside of Looking up” you may have heard on the radio, its trumpet trills and rising strings giving way to a bass-riffed bridge filled with ghostly chanting.

“The Same Does Not Apply” shows off reverbed Gutter strut and some “Start Me Up” guitar bits, but, seriously, is that the upbeat song?

With just about every tune here, the string sections, written about by Noyes and Zoidis, are downright lovely, but is that why anyone listens to Rustic Overtones? The string section? Maybe they will now. The band will have to hope their fans have grown with them and no longer thrive solely on those itchy ska parts, Gutter’s primal screams, the explosive choruses that send a crowd into a frenzy.

Because, if they did [in 2009, anyway], they’d probably just go see Paranoid Social Club: Gutter, Roods, and McNaboe playing some of the funnest rock music you’ll ever come across in a beer-soaked club.

When songs off New Way Out get finished, crowds will applaud genuinely, they’ll be awed and amazed, they’ll turn and hug their significant others and mouth, “can you believe that?” Which is great. It’s just that when “Check” gets finished people are bathed in sweat, hopping on the balls of their feet and screaming at the top of their lungs. The chorus of “Combustible” is one of my top-10 all-time favorite live-show moments. Every time I see it.

And there’s nothing that says the live set can’t have elements of both. I just have to admit I wish this new album had elements of both. I’m awed. I’m amazed. But I’m not bathed in sweat. Then again, I can get the swine flu for that.

Sparks the Rescue: Hey Mr. Allure

Sam

To the Rescue

A new EP Sparks renewed interest

Young bands come and go. As Reindeer Records’ 22nd annual Reindeer Rock-Off gets set to kick off this Sunday [May, 2006], it’s important to remember that for every Jeremiah Freed or Howie Day, who make it from the finals to the major labels, there are hundreds who melt into obscurity, as high-school bands are wont to do. Still, finalists Gloria Red, Norwood, Passing Lane, Rocksmythe, and the Shams have more reason than ever to be reasonably hopeful that hard work and good songs will pay off with at least a dedicated and loyal fanbase (thanks to the power of Internet marketing), if not fame and outrageous fortune.

I am reminded of this by a great new EP by Sparks the Rescue, a band I saw as part of my judging duties at Reindeer Rock-Off 20, back when they were the three-piece band Pozer. They had matching unis, a cool banner behind them, and the bassist jumped off the top of his stack and nearly killed himself. I liked them quite a bit. But their songs were a bit lackluster, they couldn’t generate quite the sound they needed, and the vocals were a bit weak, so I didn’t put them first (nor, however, did I put in for Sammie Francis, the eventual first-female, first-solo-artist winner – I was a Stillview man).

Luckily, Pozer have addressed all of these perceived deficiencies in fine fashion in building Sparks the Rescue, a leader of Maine’s all-ages scene. Original members Toby McCallister (guitar and vocals), Ben Briggs (bass), and Nate Spencer (drums) first added vocalist/guitarist Pat O’Connell and Marty McMorrow (keys/other stuff) to fill out their sound and upgrade their vocals a bit. This worked pretty well. Their debut self-released disc (we’ll call it a full-length at seven songs), Stumbling Skyward, was an unexpected hit, selling well for the past year-plus on the local front and helping them to build a loyal following.

Since then, however, the lead vocals of Pat O’Connell and Toby McCallister have been augmented (not quite replaced) by the addition of Alex Roy, who’s simply a more polished and confident frontman. Plus, that’s all he’s got to do, leaving the guitarists to rip – especially on stage, where Sparks are known for an impressive performance, full of flailing about that’s just short of self-mutilation. The result is personified by Hey, Mr. Allure, a three-song statement that should propel the band into the ranks of Maine’s best-known bands.

Not that they’re unknown. Not by any means.

Between Myspace and PureVolume the band have more than 100,000 song listens under their belt, which isn’t exactly the same as going platinum, but is pretty impressive nonetheless and suggests success as the band embark on an east coast tour later this month that puts them in Virginia Beach, Nashville, Roseville (Michigan), Elizabethtown (Kentucky), and Glen Cove (New York), among other places, with shows likely to be added along the way. Like Killing Moon (nee Animal Suit Drive-by), among other local young bands, Sparks have utilized the ’Net’s immense power for disseminating information, paired it with good songwriting, energy, and a willingness to develop relationships with their fans, and turned it into a tangible musical career.

Two of Mr. Allure’s tracks, “Nurse! Nurse! (I’m Losing My Patience)” and “The Scene: Your Bedroom,” are featured even now on the band’s Myspace page, so purchase of the limited-run disc is as much show of support as anything. But for those who like to hear great music in full CD quality, it’s probably worth the buy even if you’ve heard the tracks five times a day for the last few months.

First of all, the band have this time enlisted the talents of Jonathan Wyman (Skyward was recorded by the able Terry Palmer at Dizzyland), and he’s employed his close-mic’ing techniques and big-sound sensibilities to create a much fuller sound, more Foo Fighters, more immediate. “Nurse! Nurse!,” too, shows off frontman Roy’s wonderfully crisp and reedy tenor, full of irony and sneer. It’s contrasted here with deranged screaming to good effect. It’s something the band feature often, and gets them past rock and roll and into a realm of emo and hardcore. On Skyward they possibly over-utilized the delivery technique, pairing it with the lead-singing like a form of harmony on many of the tracks, stripping some of the impact.

Also, the lyrics are easier to discern here, and they can be pretty good: “Oh, can we call the hospital?/ I’ve been sleeping with the nurses/ For medication.”

Later, Sparks kick off “Saco Boys Have No Class” with an old-school “let’s go” and then reach back again for the whininess that made the early Cure my high-school girlfriend’s favorite band. They employ the screaming again sparingly here, paired with some sour notes in the bridge to emphasize the pit of despair we’re meant to sympathize with. Also, they pair it with the lead vocals in the final reprise of the chorus, which is fairly stellar, but instead of harmonizing, the scream sings a different part with different lyrics entirely.

Add that kind of creativity to a song like “The Scene,” which features five of the six band members with vocal parts, and the band’s evolution is pretty evident. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be sharing 21+ stages with bands like Lost on Liftoff any time now. Which would be appropriate. Liftoff frontman Walt Craven’s old band, Goud’s Thumb, was once Illegal Jam, which, of course, performed in Reindeer Rock-Off 2, way back in 1984.

Some young bands just don’t go away.