Signal to Noise - Kodiak
Rating
RIYL
MoneenRise Against
Hot Water Music
Dear and the Headlights
Tracklist
1. Radiation2. The Weather Machine
3. The Wolves
4. This Side of Texas
5. Fiver: Wish Me Luck
6. Song Of The Future From The Past
7. The Problem
8. To The Bitter End (I’ll Be With You)
9. The Mendicant
10. Firework Sky
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For most of us, music plays an integral role in our personal growth and ultimately comes to help shape us as we enter adulthood. Unfortunately, this will most likely include our admission that – at one point in our lives – we had spent a great deal of time listening to popular music and parading around the grade school gym for the three o’clock sock hop. And while recalling these memories might evoke notions of a simpler time when we weren’t bothered by an atrocious boss or a daunting history paper, it also allows us to reflect on how our musical tastes have become more refined. Perhaps reflecting on the music that we enjoyed at different points in our lives as young adults can help us to predict the shape of music to come.
So back to our high school lives we go. For some of us this will include the recollection of bulky tape players while others are more familiar with the evolving compact disk player – I myself, am part of the later group. Similarly, our genre of choice by this age will – hopefully – be tied closer to our current musical tastes than the music of our grade school lives. And it goes without saying that the particular groups we listened to are also subjective to our respective high school years. But hopefully one thing can be said to have universal likenesses in a scenario that is so diverse and subjective - these are the years when we first began to hear truly influential music like At The Drive In and Thursday.
At least one of these artists found their start with the infamous Alex Saaverda of Eyeball Records. Perhaps one of the most influential post-hardcore rock bands of our generation, Thursday showed an immense amount of potential when they signed with the indie label. While they may have shown promise then, the impact that they would have on the genre was yet to be seen. So a label that has the scouting power to recruit such bands as Thursday and My Chemical Romance can probably be said to grasp some sort of concept of what’s hot and unique in the modern underground music scene.
Where then, does a band signed to this very same label find its own niche when so many of its predecessors have become synonymous with their respective genres? The answer might seem as simple as Signal To Noise. While the band isn’t entirely original or groundbreaking, they are a prime example of everything that is right about the indie rock genre. Drawing on the sound of bands like Moneen and Hot Water Music, the group has forged a sound that is heavy with bitter and sweet vocal melodies and tight rhythm sections. In essence, the disk captures the best parts of the above to create a strong introductory effort on Kodiak.
The first thing one will notice with this disk is that it lacks originality, only to make up for it in catchiness and construction. Raspy vocals have long been a part of whiskey soaked chorus rock and the realization of this is one of the band's strong suits. The vocal pairing of James Tanner and Tristan Shaffer is a complementary mix as one is able to wind around the other just before the vocal breaking of his counterpart. In essence they rely heavily on each other for vocal support to the point where they can bend their voices just before breaking note. The group has the unique ability to work around their faults and this craftiness has real staying power.
As with most punk and rock hybrid acts the guitar work is well grounded – certainly not three chord numbers, but not over the top in a stadium rock sense either. Any band that can work their way across a slide guitar (even if only momentarily) deserves points for effort. However, the one point where Signal To Noise drops the ball on an integral part of their musicianship is the cowbell. This seemingly minuscule addition to the drum kit adds levels of depth and catchiness to "The Weather Machine" but is conspicuously absent from the rest of the disk. This is unfortunate but it does not take away from the complete feel and tone of the disk since the lack of cowbell is replaced by aggressiveness throughout the album.
So why all the talk about high school and the cultivation of our musical tastes? Simply because this band relates so closely to the good music that you heard before excellence was solidified – and it remains in your memory over the course of your musical lifespan. Perhaps not with the staying power of At The Drive In or Thursday, but with an essence that pleads for you to enjoy it. Basically, it’s music that you would have listened to five years ago with sentimental value that surpasses its price tag.
--Chad Quenneville
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