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CONSHAFTER – Bombs Away, Baby! – March 24, 2009
Conshafter
came roaring out of a Virginia garage with 2004’s Fear the Underdog,
followed by their 2007 release, A Slow Drive Off a High Dive, and the
forthcoming Bombs Away, Baby!,
releasing March 24th, 2009 on the band’s own independent label, Dork
Epiphany Recordings. Conshafter is a 4-piece band made up of Dave
Cykert (guitar), Chris Konstantinos (vocals), Sarah McCalla (bass), and
Austin Tevis (drums). Their new album is an unabashedly optimistic
affair. It opens with the electrifying “Bought and Sold (The
Journeyman’s Plea),” a universal anthem about redemption that
nonetheless can’t help but sound a little autobiographical. “I’ve come
to feel that, in a way, sarcasm is a crutch,” Konstantinos says. “The
economy, the state of the world...its too easy to succumb to that. It’s
hard, but I’m really trying these days to be earnest, trying to build
up without tearing down.”
Produced by indie-rock veteran Miguel
Urbiztondo (Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker, Crooked Fingers) at David
Lowery’s legendary Sound of Music studios, Bombs Away, Baby! is a grower, where previous Conshafter
efforts may have worn off after the initial sugar rush. Grammy winning
masterer Brian “Big Bass” Gardner (Killers, Foo Fighters, Outkast) adds
the bombastic sheen to the final package, a work that manages to sound
melodic while still rocking out in a way that hearkens back to a time
when the term “alt-rock” wasn’t muttered with a grimace. “We don’t mean
to be that loud, but somehow, it just happens,” Cykert says with a
grin. “Too much Doolittle and The Lonesome Crowded West in our
formative years, I guess.” The catch and release attack of McCalla and
Tevis’s rhythm section impresses, as does Cykert’s guitar, equal parts
George Harrison melodicism and Joey Santiago snarl. This aural palate
is captured visually in the album art by Grammy-nominated artist Jesse
LeDoux (created of iconic album art such as the Shins’ Chutes Too
Narrow).
Lyrically, Konstantinos mines loss (“Fell
in a Hole,” “Acetylene to Velveteen”), betrayal (“A Smoking Gun,”
“California Handshake”), and corporate bloat (the red-hot dance punk of
“Going Down?”), but manages to leaven those moments with strains of
hope and optimism that borders on the spiritual. By the time the lovely
album closer “Remain” and the live hidden track (the arpeggio “Going
Gray”) roll by, the listener is left with the unshakable feeling that
these bratty college punks may have, after all these years, finally
grown up and blissed out. Already having shared the stage with artists
like The Bravery, The Killers, and Rooney, Conshafter now prepares to embark on an east coast tour this spring.
www.myspace.com/conshafter
www.conshafter.com
For press/publicity information, please contact:
Laura Goldfarb / The Planetary Group /
617.226.1040
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