What a great concept. Band members of popular acts who may or may not be continuing on form temporary partnerships with new players to experience and create a fresh sound. For fun, for posterity, or just for a change, it’s good for the players and good for the fans, who get to hear familiar voices in a fresh context, and yes, “fresh” is the operative word for “My Other Band.”
My Red Hot Nightmare gets things started with two tracks of thundering guitar riffs and aggressive vocals along classic punk lines. The gritty urban feel comes from old Supertones and Ace Troubleshooter friends Ethan Luck, Dan Spencer, and Josh Abbott, singing of relationship woes and sacrificial loving.
Things take a sharp turn to the softer side with Matthew Thiessen’s more reflective “The Calendar, The Energy.” His sparkling keys float through a Beatlesque melody line on this standout track, before kicking the excellence level up another notch for a smooooooth cover of Brian Wilson’s “The Warmth of the Sun.” The Relient K frontman nails the high vocals easily, and the backup vocals of his Earthquakes stand up tothe Beach Boys own. Kudos to Thiessen for this high wire act of bravery, performed flawlessly. They finish up with the quirky “Faking My Own Suicide,” a tongue-in-cheek commentary on selfish love.
Get ready for a whole new side of Audio A’s Tyler Burkum, who puts out several jingly-jangly Byrds-like rockers, thick with twelve-string guitars and ambience under his winsome crooning, offering up some of the album’s best tracks. Agnes is actually Relient K drummer Dave Douglas playing every axe on three muscular punk-rockers. Bleach members Davy Baysinger and Jared Byers morph into Royal Empire Music to create some warmly melodic alt-rock with unique percussive touches. “God’s Vast Ocean” is probably the most startling of the bunch, one of two written in memory of a friend lost at sea. An interesting track, spare and open as its subject matter, it is at times brooding, always moving, Baysinger’s vocals evoking a Jagger-like melancholy. The closer “Big Valley” is quite similar in its lonely wildness, its bagpipes and horns accenting the note of loss throughout.
All in all, “My Other Band: Volume 1”, from Mono vs Stereo, takes a solid idea and runs it out to a delightful and provocative conclusion.
