photo by Ryan Russell
After I went through my ska, pop punk and poppy emo (ala Jimmy Eat World and The Get Up Kids) phases, I loved the shit out of really technical indie/emo type stuff. Mainly Chicago or Chicago-associated bands, like Braid, The Casket Lottery, Owls, American Football etc. By early college I found myself obsessed with clean channeled finger tapping (Minus the Bear), and what I call the waterfall guitar stylings of Cap'n Jazz/Ghosts & Vodka/Owls dude Victor Villareal.
In late 2003 I finally got into pop music, and mostly forgot about all that other stuff. Mostly.
Fast forward to April 2007, when I attended a free music festival put on by Indiana University in Bloomington. I had seen the name Maps & Atlases all over the internets, but had never heard them, and honestly assumed them to be some emo or melodic hardcore band that played in Grand Rapids a lot that I would never give half a shit about. Hoo boy was I wrong. They played as a three-piece (their second guitarist for some reason was unable to make the fest on time) for the first time, unpracticed, and I was shocked at how good they were.
Maps & Atlases play a brand of indie rock that is similar to a chunk of the bands listed above, namely Owls and older Minus the Bear (not that spacey shit). If you like the Chicago indie bands of lore, you should find much to love on their debut EP, Trees, Swallows, Houses.
Luckily for all of us, the band is getting ready to release a new EP, You and Me and the Mountain. It will be released digitally on June 16th. They recently posted the title track from said EP on their MySpace page. The song has all the finger tapping and stops and starts that math rock fans should freak out about. What sets Maps & Atlases apart from their Chicago cohorts, is a somewhat consistent groove (at least on their newer jams), and Dave Davison's unique vocals.
Where the songs on Trees, Swallows, Houses are all over the place and admittedly hard and even frustrating to follow (though still completely bad ass), "You and Me and the Mountain" consists of a pretty straightforward structure and is much subtler. Drummer Erin Elders doesn't dominate the track as much, which is a welcome display of maturity. He still is one of the best drummers I've ever seen/heard.
They have two dates in Michigan coming up this summer. June 19th at Mac's Bar in Lansing with Mewithoutyou and August 6th at The Magic Stick in Detroit with RX Bandits and Portugal, the Man. They will have CD versions of the new EP with limited edition packaging for sale on these tours.
Check their shit out.
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