There seems to have been a lot of interesting music coming out of Chicago and catching my attention of late. A good album from Clearance and a great one from Cafe Racer to name just two. And now this, a fine eponymous debut offering from Ethers, something of an Indie supergroup composed of members of a number of local bands.
With a sound driven by that swirling organ sound that the Velvets pretty much stamped a trademark on for their '69 Live album and which first turned The Modern Lovers radio on and supplemented by frantic, urgent playing and singing that brings to mind Flying Nun legends The Clean and The Chills,(and elsewhere Television and The Feelies), this is a smart little record.
Very much stripped of pretension but constantly inventive within the constraints of the melodic American alternative Rock and Roll tradition of the last fifty years, Ethers doesn't rip up any rule books but slots neatly in with much stuff that you may already cherish. The kind of band you'd be thrilled to chance upon on a Saturday night on the town.
Most of all Ethers themselves seem to be having a wail of a time, all you can really ask of this stuff. It's all thoughtfully streamlined and beautifully concise. Twelve driving songs of between two and four minutes and not a duffer among them.
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