(End of the Month Theme: Local Bands) 01/31/12: volcano! - Paperwork (2008)

End of the Month Theme: Local Bands 
On the last day of each month we will be choosing a theme that both of our album picks must fit within. It was oksentaminen's pick in January. He chose Local Bands... Here's my pick. I tracked it down just for this theme.

01/31/12: volcano! - Paperwork (2008)

1. Performance Evaluation Shuffle
2. Africa Just Wants to Have Fun
3. Tension Loop
4. Fairy Tale
5. Slow Jam
6. '78 Oil Crisis
7. Sweet Tooth
8. Astronomer's Ballad
9. '-----------------
10. Palimpsests
11. Kitchen Dance

     So January's end of the month theme is "Local Bands". Instead of finding a band that is already in my collection and from the area I decided to randomly scour the internet for "on the rise" local bands. At first the band name caught my eye. I watched a snippet of a youtube clip in the article i was reading and immediately recognized them as a math-rock band of sorts. So I took a chance and bought their second full-length "Paperwork".
     volcano! is a 3 piece rock band from Chicago. Their sound according to the interwebs draws from Classic rock, post-punk, free jazz, and noise rock. My quick input: when you draw from free jazz and noise rock you end up sounding math rock. This band is all over the place and I love it. The vocals move from punk to Spanish to some of the poppiest melodies ever. He has a wide range with some very entertaining Kane Hodder-esque falsetto moments. The drums are constantly going up and down in volume and in and out of timing. There's electronic parts, punk parts, experimental parts.... the album was a really fun journey. The guitars get weird at times and as rock and roll as can be at others. I will probably be listening to everything of theirs in the near future and hoping to see them live soon.
     This was probably my favorite find of this project so far. Realistically i wanted to put every track in boldface but i figured I had to single out a few songs. This band was just truly a combination of so many things I love in a band and they do it all well. They are reminiscent of At The Drive In, The Mars Volta, Kane Hodder, Hella and maybe even a bit of Tera Melos. Damn good album. Hope they make some more music soon. (031)

Note: I just realized i listened to this entire album out of order.... so relistening now in correct order... hahaha