Terminal Band
You can ask Mark Duggan where he comes from and he'll simply say Buffalo.
When you get around to asking Duggan, Elad Love Affair's rough buff bread bassist,
where he's been in the last few months? He'll tell you Brooklyn, Boston, New Jersey,
Pittsburg, Ohio, Kentucky, Vermont, Illinois, Michigan and West Virginia. The next and
most important question would be where are you going?
Formed just over two years ago Elad Love Affair signed with Brooklyn based
Immigrant Sun records and is now just coming off tour. Their Fiona-Apple like album
name, a woman gives birth to a gun and it stabs her, pushes six tracks of tightly knit
music that screams with energy. Clever guitar licks highlight what makes for an
impressively ambitious and mature debut.
The instrumentals may remind listeners to the sounds of Silver Chair, No Doubt
and Thursday's Collateral Damage. On track three, "bee swallower", Duggan keeps a
steady pace for Nola Ranallo who shines her brightest on this attitude packed joint. The
simplicity of this bands music is their weapon. They provide a rock-steady musical
energy with track four, hauntingly titled "on wife beating" Which Ranallo has said
examines "abuse in the home". Rannallo's poetry and lyrical concepts are her greatest
contributions to Elad Love Affair's already cohesive unit.
Number five, quickly titled, when you've run, out of words to eat, you've only got
yourself is styled similar to the legendary tracks found on Weezer's "blue album". When
the music behind "finding sex appeal in oncoming traffic" the last track on the album,
Nada-Surf and other on-again, off-again indie-rock noteworthy teams. The simplicity of
the chord changes and the rise and fall of the tempo makes for an exciting listen.
Although conservative in some areas, but tied together well, this album makes me want to
drive as fast as I can for twenty nine minutes, over and over again.
Elad Love Affair shares gripping music that is too hard to pass off as some kind
of corporate scheme to give a Letters to Cleo-like band another shot at the market place.
Blowing off this female fronted group would be an injustice to the equal opportunity
world of indie-rock. Though their words and music aren't always working together, their
sound is gripping and builds up to trance inducing bridges. Their noticeable troubles are
not beyond repair, but those flaws may make or break your first impression of the band.
A healthy and positive debut created a demand for a follow-up. Sometime in the
next year the band will once again record. This time their label will pick up the bill and
with improvements in sound quality the band will attempt a full length project, setting out
to top their prior EP. Look for them to go to Disney Land or fade into oblivion.
Eladloveaffair.com
Written By: Matt C.
