It's a triple treat as area bands release CD

By TIMOTHY FINN - Pop Music Writer
Date: 03/03/98 22:15

Unlike politics and property values, most music isn't local. On the other hand, sometimes you don't have to look beyond your own political precinct to find bands playing tunes as good as anything else out there. But first you have to know those tunes are out there.

So now you'll know: Three bands from our area cut records recently and tossed them into the big pop music arena. We're recommending all three, betting you'll find something you like on at least one of them.

The Gadjits: "At Ease" (Hellcat Records): The Gadjits are pitched as a ska band, and technically they are one. But they're ska like Puff Daddy is hip-hop -- softly, measurably and commercially.

That's not an indictment of their sound. The Gadjits build sturdy, tasty pop songs, using ska's jackhammer time signature as a load-bearing frame. Just don't expect to hear chunks of the Specials, Clash or early Police on "At Ease," though the crunchiest tune on the record, "Traffic Ticket," will make you think of Rancid.

The Gadjits sand and wax their ska to the same soft, easy finish that bands like General Public once did. The results are gratifying, especially when you explore some of the natty melody lines that flit and float through the background.

The shuffly piano riff on "Sh'bop," for example, tap dances like something cribbed from an early Joe Jackson tune. And "Corpse I Fell in Love With" is a gummy pop-in-your-mouth instrumental speckled with some tart bits of surf guitar from Brandon Phillips, who is also the band's lead vocalist.

Purists may find the Gadjits' strain of ska/reggae too sweet and stonewashed, but in the long run that could be a blessing. Years from now, after the ska uprising has waned, most of the songs on "At Ease" will still sound fresh and charming, not out of fashion.

grovel: "Statically Yours": The record opens with a binge of stark, ambient noodling, which bleeds into the second song. "Valentine" then floats along, eerily and weightlessly -- like Robert Smith covering Mazzy Star -- until it bursts into a bender of feedback, percussion and guitar mayhem.

Like most guitar bands, grovel spends its fortissimo lavishly. But unlike so many guitar bands, grovel knows when to tweak the volume, drop the screaming machismo and stay within the scribbly contours of its aberrant, off-keel arrangements.

The best part of this seven-song disc is the first half, peaking with the fourth song, "Fetish Line." Brad Hedgson's weary voice drifts between two afflictions: acute ennui and chronic fatigue syndrome. The effect suits grovel's ominous arrangements, although at times the vocals get lost in the squalls of feedback and percussion.

Like another local band, the Black Water, grovel dabbles in atmospherics -- shadow, color and texture. Music like that tends to unveil itself slowly, so listen beyond the guitar thunder for the details -- the embellishments, the shifts in mood. Therein lie the rewards of this ambitious record.

Julia Surrendered: "Sweet Little Superstar": Produced at Chapman Studios by former Chainsaw Kitten Trent Bell, "Superstar" is a three-cut EP brimming with goods and buxom with promise.

"Fame Thing" is the best of three good songs: a load of power pop (somewhere between Cheap Trick and Foo Fighters) tossed in the wash with a few scraps of 1970s FM rock.

Derek Neibarger sings the tune in a voice that bears a slight but warm resemblance to a young David Bowie, "Hunky Dory" era. Behind the vocals, the rest of the band lobs in swirls and tufts of sweet pop elements, including a heavy mist of dreamy harmonies and a tasty keyboard riff that will ring in your head for days. They put radios in cars just for songs like these.