North of Canada @ The Red & The Black 12/12 - Review

Repeated pleas to remove his shirt had little effect on the General.

Despite shouts from the crowd and encouragement from fellow band members, the drummer for North of Canada resolutely remained clothed, avoiding shirtless shenanigans.

Instead, it was the music that was revealing. And the General, generally known as Mark Kuczynski, anchored the rhythm section throughout the band's recent performance at The Red and the Black in Washington, D.C.

The band, which splits its allegiance between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., played its first show since debuting a new bass player, Mike Lashinsky (the Admiral), in September.

Drawing on influences from American groups such as Johnny Headband and Ghost City along with British bands such as Supergrass and Blur, North of Canada invoked British singer-songwriter Graham Coxon with “life is hollow and benign,” a spin-off of a line from Coxon’s “Empty Word” during the raucous “Feel.”

Thanks to good sound balance in the small upstairs room of The Red and the Black, this and the band’s other lyrics came through loud and clear, rising above the sometimes intense dueling guitar effects created by the band’s two guitarists. Complementary vocals by Ryan Kobb (Brazenly Rye) and Rob Kuczynski (Robert France) further accentuated the steady rhythm kept by the General and bass lines carefully orchestrated by the Admiral.

Culminating with the borderline prog-rock length song, “Falling Down,” North of Canada kept the audience hanging to its eclectic melodies and inventive lyrics, even devising words like “octo-green.”

Even though the band, as in one of their songs, might “not know what's up in our sky,” they certainly keep fans looking upward to their next performance – even if the General didn't disrobe.

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North of Canada will be releasing an EP, Every Sea Horse Could Be Different, in 2009. To hear the band and see photos and videos from their performances, visit www.myspace.com/northofcanada.

BY LINDSEY WRAY

Ra Ra Riot at Ottobar - a concert review

On the strength of Ra Ra Riot's stellar debut, The Rhumb Line, I braved the inclement weather to catch the last show of the band's North American tour at Baltimore's Ottobar. The Syracuse-based sextet played an all ages show with Princeton and So Many Dynamos as their opening acts.

From their opener, the elegiac and Joy Division-inflected Each Year, to uptempo numbers like Too Too Too Fast with its 5150-like synth, the band engaged the audience in their deeply personal tales of love, loss and redemption. Vocaslist Wes Miles' melodic tenor recalls a young Glenn Tillbrook (of Squeeze fame) or Beirut's Zach Condon. Guitarist Milo Bonacci, formerly of the Gym Class Heroes, and bassist Mathieu Santos form the hyperkinetic backbone of the band. New drummer Gabriel Duquette, replacing the late John Ryan Pike, keeps the rhythm in a band that veers chaotically across the stage like an old Beetle with a shaky CV joint and questionable alignment. The real story here, however, is the other string section, comprised of cellist Alexandra Lawn and violinist Rebecca Zeller. Their presence adds flesh and finish to the band's compositions in a manner that additional vocalists or guitars couldn't. As improbable as it sounds, the combination just works, and the net result was not only my pick for best album of the year (and one of the finest debuts I've ever heard), but the single best show of all the concerts I attended this year.

23 Rainy Days @ The Firehouse Grill Friday

23 Rainy Days has constantly been improving with each batch of new songs they’ve released, and their new album, A Wonderful Disaster, is no exception. They embrace their influences (The Cure, The Smiths) while expanding on them, and they do it beautifully, creating a gorgeous expansive sound, lush with electric guitars and syths. And lead singer Ian MacGregor’s Cure-ish vocals fit the slightly depressive lyrics like a hand to a glove. If you like what you hear, check them out this Friday, December 5th at The Firehouse Grill in Fairfax, VA.

MP3: Blackest Days – 23 Rainy Days
MP3: Goodnight and Goodbye – 23 Rainy Days