| CD REVIEW Demians |
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Band : Department Of Eagles Department Of Eagles is a Brooklyn (NY) based band that started out in 2000 under the name Whitey On The Moon UK, and consists of friends Daniel Rossen and Fred Nicolaus. Then roommates at New York University, the duo would make their music from collected samples assembled into songs and recorded with pirated recording software, and a microphone borrowed from their neighbor, Chris Taylor (whom would later become DoE's producer & recording engineer and Rossen's bandmate in the band Grizzly Bear). By pure chance the duo managed to get some of their early material distributed on two 7-inch singles (2002's Mo' 'Tussin – The EP, and 2003's The Noam Chomsky Spring Break EP by independent record label Isota Records. For their 2003 full-length debut album The Whitey On The Moon UK LP, they recorded additional songs with producer Jeff Saltzman (father of a friend at NYU; would go on to produce The Killers' debut album Hot Fuss). The album was the first to be released under the new name of DoE, to avoid a dispute with a San Francisco band with almost the same name (no “UK”). The guys then played their one and only gig at that time, performing for KDVS radio on a show hosted by music director Richard Hicks, whom supported the band from early on, and Rossen soon after joined Grizzly Bear. Well, that could have been the end for DoE, really. Throughout 2005, the friends had been trading demos of new song material, and decided that if there was going to be a new DoE album, they were going to make it without samples. Evidently, that was going to take a serious budget in order to be able to pay for such type of recording sessions. Luckily, the music industry started taking notice. First, UK label Melodic re-issued the Whitey On The Moon UK LP (on both LP and CD, by the was) in 2005, re-titling it to The Cold Nose. Then US label American Dust re-issued that album (same title) with 4 bonus tracks, in 2007. In between, in January 2006, the duo convened in a condo-converted-into-decent-studio for a month-long session, and saw themselves confronted with professional-grade equipment with which they were largely unfamiliar. Slowly getting to grips with the equipment, they also wanted to perform every instrument themselves, which occasionally led to exhausting sessions (like in the track “Golden Apple”, for which they layered cello upon cello to create the illusion of a full string ensemble)...which also led to the disillusionment in the sessions, which were eventually deemed a failure. But it wasn't a complete failure, as it helped the duo getting to grips with the equipment, and when British quality label 4AD came along with a deal for an album, the next time the guys were in the studio they were better prepared. New recording sessions resulted in the October 2008 released full-length In Ear Park (I've been thinking that title may be an allusion to Van Dyke Parks, the artist which the band holds as one of its most important influences), which was warmly received by the media. But that (almost two years ago) was then, and this is now, and what we're supposed to be talking about is this 11-track, 31 ½ -minute album we have on our hands here! (by the way, thanks goes to the band's page at Wikipedia, from which I re-wrote the above biography) As you might've guessed (not from the album's title, because that's somewhat misleading), the material offered here includes those “failed” January 2006 recording sessions, to which the track “While We're Young” (recorded as a b-side with some production by Chris Taylor, it's home recorded vocals and sounds to which a more sophisticated rhythm section was added by Taylor). What's it all sound like? Well, with the aid of piano, some acoustic guitar, some scarce additional percussion (plus the strings mentioned before in the case of “Golden Apple”), and the duo's enigmatic lead and harmonic backing vocals (darn, and those backing vocals are véry important in the whole, you know), the duo's music is best described as an East Coast Folk with harmonic vocals. As a whole however, that description will probably mean nothing to those unfamiliar with the genre, and I am well aware that this type of music will hardly be found in the collections of the average Concrete Web reader. However, for those adventurous enough to venture into calmer types of music, to those music lovers with a more open-minded taste, I strongly urge they check out the songs posted at myspace.com/deptofeagles. I'm sure the wonderful vocal harmonics will simply grab you by the throats, even convince some of you to go check out/ buy one of the band's albums (my advice would be to get yourselves the sophomore album, which is after all closer to the posted material, first). 90/100 Tony. |