Today's band (and
tomorrow's) did not come to me via the normal path of being followed by them on
Twitter, but it was Twitter-related.
I started following
band member Chase Kerby due to another person on Twitter, and her following him
seems to have started with his previous band. It works out though, because I
have enjoyed listening to them.
One fun thing about
the band is their successful avoidance of picking a genre. Even bands that
avoid choosing a genre everywhere else usually have something fairly accurate
picked out for the Facebook About page. Defining Times did fill in the blank
(it might be mandatory), but all it says is "Errthang". Clever, and
not at all specific.
At some points they
remind me of The Arcade Fire, but really they are pretty much their own thing.
There may be a heavier classical music influence than with some bands, but they
do not sound like classical music. I guess the most I can say is that they
sound like themselves.
There is a somewhat
otherworldly feel to them, but perhaps not so much going out into space as that
they are operating on the fringes of the psyche. Feelings arise that are not so
unfamiliar as to be alien, but there are depths and horizons that feel
unexplored.
Songs can be
listened to via Bandcamp, as well as purchased there. I cannot pick a song that
is representative really. "Streets" was probably the first one that
drew me in, with its rhythms, and I respond to it, but it doesn't tell you what
the rest of the songs are like. I guess in that way, it kind of is
representative.
Because of all of
that, I feel like this is not a particularly helpful review. I will say that
they are worth listening to, and I will throw out one other thing that may be
in their favor.
A while back My
Chemical Romance did an interview at the Grammy Museum with the executive
director Bob Santelli. Something he relayed to them was that early on a friend
had said he had this band (MCR), but he did not know what to do with them, and
Santelli thought that was great, because then no one else is doing that yet.
So, it is not just
that Defining Times is worth listening to now, but they may also have the
potential to go really far.
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