Eureka California
Eureka California saved my life.” – Jeremy Rose
“Eureka California sound like the 90s to me. On Big Cats Can Swim, they have this pop-meets-rock sound that is full of static and lo-fi vocals. If you told me this was an unreleased album by an indie band from the 90s, I wouldn’t be surprised. ” – To Eleven
“Eureka California is an Athens band playing delightful garage rock – British invasion-influenced stuff that is really catchy, raw and kind of psychedelic, in the vein of the Nuggets comps or, say, 13th Floor Elevators or early Pink Floyd – or jumping forward to some of the Paisley Underground stuff like Rain Parade. Big Cats Can Swim is a really good record… as in, the more I listen, the more I like.” – When You Motor Away
“Eureka California will make you want to start a band.” – The Daily Wildcat
“Big Cats Can Swim is wide-screen, high-definition magnificence; brightly cheerful and thrillingly instant. The product of kids who know there’s no new shades on the spectrum, but are determined to have a blast mixing the colours.” – The Line of Best Fit
“I say invite this trio into your house for tea, crumpets and tallboys and hope to god they accept your invitation and stay a while. Their album crackles and pops with great songs that retain the vital and immediateness that you would have experienced if you would have been in their garage when they were recording them.” – Finest Kiss
The Hotels
The Hotels are either a poor man’s Hüsker Dü or a homeless man’s Katy Perry. Your 13-year-old cousin knows all about The Hotels and you’re getting old. The Hotels locked the keys to the City inside the City and are now totally stranded in the middle of Fucking Nowhere. The Hotels are the car stereo that goes bump in the night. The Hotels probably think they sound like AC/DC or some stupid shit like that. The Hotels have lived with their girlfriend for like three years and still call the place “My Girlfriend’s Apartment.” The Hotels tried to buy a lucy at the Gas Station and then pretended like they already knew that shit’s illegal in Atlanta when they totally didn’t. If The Hotels die, they want their ashes scattered in Rivers Cuomo’s living room, all over his precious sofa and shit.
Feather Trade
Antbrian
Antbrain plays their brand of rock music with a crooked smile. Audiences can’t help but smile back as their ears get gently tickled by the fuzzy guitars, driving basslines and pummeling rhythms. Starting out as a sporadic recording project for guitarist Jiyoung Lee and bassist Dave Bonawits in 2008, the band discovered their true self when they added drummer Josh Hall in mid-2010. Since then they’ve been winning audiences over with their self described “slop-pop.”
Deft songwriting and a feral energy form the core of Antbrain’s music. Just underneath the wisecracks and zen-like koans burns a 21st century lyricism wavering between crippling neuroses and supreme confidence. Lee and Bonawits sing with a semi-shouted roar, often at the same time, never losing sight of their innate melodicism. The overall sound is decidedly 90’s, coming across as a weird mix between the Pixies, Moldy Peaches and Pinkerton-era Weezer. Someone once said they sounded like The Presidents of the United States of America, but they did not like that comparison.
What more can be said of giddy pop music? You will either be charmed or you won’t. Like it or not, you are almost guaranteed to get one of their many hooks woven into some hidden synapse deep inside your brain. And contrary to so many players of rock and roll these days, those crooked smiles reveal much about the joy in their performance.
-Shane Morgensson, Portland ME, January 2012
