After two CDEP's, Chicago's The Poison Arrows return with their long-awaited debut album First Class, and Forever. Guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Justin Sinkovich (ex Atombombpocketknife) first released a solo EP entitled Trailer Park as The Poison Arrows in 2004 on File Thirteen. He, drummer Adam Reach, and bassist Patrick Morris (ex Don Caballero) then began playing together. While completing the overdubbing, editing, and mixing of their first EP Straight Into The Drift in their studio The Plaza, The Poison Arrows began to write songs together as a band. After a year had passed, far more than an album's worth of music materialized.
The Poison Arrows then went into Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studio A with staff engineer and long- time friend Greg Norman to record the basic tracks for over a dozen songs. After completing the basic tracks at Electrical, all of the overdubs were recorded at The Plaza. As the band continued to finish mixes for First Class, and Forever, the second EP Casual Wave was completed from the same sessions.
The release of Casual Wave in August of 2008 showed a substantial evolution of The Poison Arrows into a band. The sounds from Electrical Audio are embraced instead of drastically manipulated like the previous EP, while overdubs follow structures that were previously decided upon by live arrangements.
First Class, and Forever takes these Electrical sessions far further with more complex songwriting and instrumentation. Patrick Morris's bass playing anchors the songs' melodies with complex compositions and an unusually extensive array of bass effects. Drummer Adam Reach provides thunderous drumming captured in classic Albini form. Sinkovich instrumentally relies on a maze of guitar lines and a variety of synthesizers sounds, while his vocals glue together each meandering soundtrack with a stark delivery of heady prose. Brian Case from The Ponys, 90 Day Men, and Disappears contributes vocals with Sinkovich on two of the album's tracks “Total Beverage” and “Twenty Percent Brighter.” Eric Chaleff from Sterling, Follows, and Bloodiest adds striking guitar lines on “Twenty Percent Brighter” as well. The combination of this wide variety of elements has created a complex and intense post-progressive neo-surrealist ten-track album.
The Poison Arrows have toured in the Midwest and East Coast with the likes of Battles, Holy Fuck, Boris, Bellini, Lords, Department of Eagles, Enon, Thalia Zedek, Indian, Born Ruffians, Cadence Weapon, Dianogah, Shipping News, School of Language, and many more. They will be touring extensively for the release of First Class, and Forever.
First Class, and Forever Tracklist
1. Future Wine
2. Total Beverage
3. Fire Up the Happiness Center
4. Twenty Percent Brighter
5. Casual Wave
6. An Unexploded Dream
7. The Path of Least Resistance
8. Peruvian Mountain Fight
9. To Meet Eyes
10. Ideal Omens
First Class and Forever has enough hooks and melodies (both usually provided by Sinkovich's vocals) to hold listeners' attention, but underneath that, it's a music-geek's dream come true. Sinkovich's guitar is stuck in abstract post-rock mode on "Twenty Percent Brighter," but Morris' bass lines chug away with all the grim determination of Chicago post-punk acts like Shellac. "Total Beverage" takes those nasty, dirty and menacing rhythm sections Steve Albini's bands are known for, places them in a free-jazz world where guitar and synths run anarchic and free and lets leaves it up to listeners to sort out the mess. - Aversion.com
Featuring ex-members of Atombombpocketknife and Don Caballero, this Chicago band can sound just like you'd imagine a post-everything power trio should: viscous bass lines and guitar fragments intricately woven together and powered by thunder percussion over Slint-ian landscapes of shape-shifting time sigs. Not unlike their pedigrees, in other words, but tilting more melodic since Atombomb's Justin Sinkovich writes and sings -- like an American version of the Stone Roses' Ian Brown at times -- here as well. But what elevates this full-length debut are the spacey (as in practically Spiritualized spacey) synth interludes and melodies that act like bellows, allowing the songs to breathe in and gather momentum between well-paced bouts of 21st-century aggro. - Blurt-online.com
The Poison Arrows Live!
May 12 2009 THE BEAT KITCHEN (RECORD RELEASE EXTRAV) CHICAGO, Illinois W/ JAPANDROIDS + BLOODIEST
May 15 2009 SKULL ALLEY LOUISVILLE, Kentucky
May 16 2009 CLUB 529 ATLANTA, Georgia W/ ALL THE SAINTS
May 17 2009 THE MILESTONE CLUB CHARLOTTE W/ ANAL BLAST + ZEUS
May 19 2009 THE BLACK CAT DC, Washington DC W/ EDIE SEDGWICK
May 20 2009 THE PLAZA BOWL RICHMOND, Virginia
May 21 2009 THE CAKE SHOP NYC, New York W/ KNOT FEEDER
May 22 2009 THE KHYBER PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania W/ KNOT FEEDER
May 23 2009 THE SMILING MOOSE PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania W/ ENON + KNOT FEEDER
May 24 2009 CAFE BOURBON ST COLUMBUS, Ohio
May 30 2009 RECKLESS RECORDS WICKER PARK - FREE INSTORE - 3 PM CHICAGO, Illinois
Jun 28 2009 SCHUBA'S CHICAGO, IL W/ BOTTOMLESS PIT - FREE SHOW !
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The Poison Arrows Release New Album, "First Class and Forever," Today
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