Beat Blvd. is Heard Mentality's weekly review of local releases. If
you're an OC musician or band with something new to offer–vinyl single,
full-length album, CD, cassette–we want to hear from you! Send copies,
along with any photos and PR material, to Beat Blvd., c/o OC Weekly, 2975 Red Hill Ave., Ste. 150, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. You can also e-mail us digital downloads at
lb***@oc******.com
.
Two Guns
Far People in Far Places
http://www.twogunsmusic.com/
It's almost–almost–disconcerting to realize that the rumblings of a
early 1990s revival in indie rock seem to get truer all the time.
Perspective is part of it–speaking for myself, I keep feeling like
I'm flashing back to DJ sets of mine on 1993 or so on KUCI as I listen
to an advance of Far People in Far Places, so a little reminder that I'm in the 21st
century never hurts. The Long Beach quintet's second album neither stops
there nor ignores more recent things, but at certain points Two Guns are almost an out of
body experience.
]
But taking any release at face value is always the best approach, for all the echoes, and this isn't full-on “we're not grunge but we're kinda scruffy” AOR nonsense from that year, but its own gently spirited 2011 effort. For instance, the watery keyboards on “Coming at You,” not
to mention the tone of the singing, almost makes it more of a Blur nod
than Pavement (or at least Blur before they wanted to be Pavement). There's also a slow but sure jauntiness
that also picks up through the album, the type of thing that feels much more of the moment than the past, as the piano on a song like “Sidekick” shows well
enough.
Perhaps the best sign of something a little more comes across in
songs like “The Happening,” which has a quick but still queasy feeling,
not exactly psych rock overload like the Black Angels but something not
too far removed from it either. “Packing Up”'s winsome demi-country
ramble is another gentle winner as well, with a good lyric about moving on and out from a past. Also, credit to them for an album that's 30 minutes long,
because the endless meandering of a lot of stuffed-to-the-CD-limit gills '90s releases is something we
really don't need again, in any form.
Release date for Far People in Far Places TBA but they've been playing around lately so keep your eyes peeled; their next scheduled show will be August 7th at the Detroit Bar with Summer Darling, Modern Memory and the Kettle Drivers.
