I've heard Anathallo described as one part indie, one partmarching band, one part musical theater and one part "oh my God mybrain just broke." I'm sure there is a dash of other things in there,too, but I have neither the refined musical vocabulary nor expertise topick them out. Any way you describe it, their show at the Ottobar lastThursday blew everyone away.
I was in the balcony for the entirety of the Ottobar show,which, in the end, was a good call. As the concert got underway, thespace in front of the stage was packed by increasingly tall high schoolkids. What the hell they were doing out on a Thursday night in theirHot Topic and Pac Sun attire, giant black Xs emblazoned on their hands,I will never know.
Royal Army Recording Company, a group from Frostburg, Md.opened first, filling the "TBA" slot on the Baltimore ticket. Theyearned immediate bonus points when I saw one of them hooking a violinup to one side, and double that when they used it, and well, in theirshow. There is nothing quite like seeing a man rock out on a violin.That said, the level of rocking out you get from a violin andpredominantly acoustic guitar is distinctly different from other sortsof rocking out. RARC is classic indie rock, with ballad-like songs, theoccasional duet and some sprinklings of other instrumentation courtesyof their keyboard player (who, lamentably, seemed like he couldn't rockout nearly as much as he wanted to, with a stationary instrument andall). Their set was regrettably short, but as a small-time local bandthat has only yet produced a record under the name of The Royal ArmyRecording Company as of 2006, not surprising. Their information andmusic samples, are available at http://www.royal-army.net.
Page France, listed on the ticket with Anathallo, was up next.Despite (or maybe because of) favorable reviews from a friend, I wasunderwhelmed. Don't get me wrong; they are a talented group of people.But their music was distinctly folksy and the lead singer's voice hadan odd, nasal undertone to it -- when you don't love a band's style andhave issue with the sound of their singer's voice, there's just nowhereto go from there. That said, I could listen to them, and if the daycomes when I have enough disposable income that I don't want to disposeon other things, I'd pick up their CD. But they are not a band likeRARC or Anathallo that I could ever listen to on repeat. In theirfavor, their music does have an endearing and almost fairy-tale feelwith a gentle xylophone plink and strummed guitar strings. Their lyricscarry the same vibe, and with them, a kind of Zen warmth that's hard tofind (and hard to find properly executed) in much music. Their music isavailable through http://www.pagefrance.net.
Anathallo was the last band to take the stage, coming on in alltheir seven-person-ensemble glory and needing an impressively shortamount of time to set up the impressively many instruments they had onhand. Any show with Anathallo becomes part concert part performancepiece, with each song shuffling band members around the stage to takeup different instruments, or engage in precisely timed dances -- ifclapping, folding in half and popping up can be counted as dance. I'mgoing to say they can. I hesitate to classify Anathallo as anything butsimply indie as their member number and array of instruments are signsenough that they like experimentation.
The sound of rain on a snare drum, wind chimes through axylophone (a popular instrument that night), clapping for a beat wherethere might otherwise be a drum and the rolling crescendo of horns andsymbols are only the tip of the iceberg. Anathallo's lead singer has agentle, lyrical voice that lends itself to their more energetic songsas well as the soothingly somber numbers like "Genessaret." Anathalloclosed their set with "Kasa no Hone (The Umbrella's Bones)," a songthat, despite its steady foothold in my iTunes Most Frequently Playedlist, I still can't categorize. It's lilting, it's haunting, and, as Irealized for the first time at the show last night, it's in Japanese.My friend was turned off by the idea of the awkward white boy at themic singing in an Asian language -- the word `fanboy' comes to mind --but I was, and am, so won over by the borderline indescribable soundthat all I want to do is find the lyrics, sit down and translate.
