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Artist Mon Sep 24 2007
These Kids Can Gaze
Too many high school bands are punk-pop, teeny-bopper-pleasing pretty-boys. Perhaps I'm opinionated, but the fact remains that teenage bands lack the variety found in older acts. So, a band like Anon, Good Nurse is a special find. Why? Anon, Good Nurse is a young local band with serious shoegaze chops.
Yes, that's right: a (mainly) teenage shoegaze group. If your mouth isn't watering as much as mine, something is seriously wrong with you. Despite some sketchy recording, their MySpace page provides two explosive instrumental tracks that ring with the same sort of musical climaxes as Explosions in the Sky, but with guitar influences closer to Sonic Youth at times (more on them later).
Running truly DIY out of their MySpace page, Anon have already played with notables Sunny Day in Glasgow, Knife, Caspian, and are scheduled to play with Tulsa...just to name a few. Additionally, the band just announced the completion of their debut record, which should be released and available at their shows through Mouthstatic Records (and in Japan through Friend of Mine Records) in November.
Back to their tracks, "Youth of the Beast" initially churns through drudgery and feedback plentiful in fuzz before opening into a melody similar to anything off of All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone. Meanwhile, "Risk" (possibly inspired by one of the band’s quoted pastimes) offers chilling rings to their guitar chime -- similar to that of Bury the Sound or Butterfly Explosion-- gradually expanding into a break-neck pace that you know ends with a cataclysmically-satisfying sonic explosion.
The bottom line is this: Anon, Good Nurse have potential leaking out of every pore, and deserve kudos for diving into such instrumentally-rich territory while so many others are content to strum out power-chords to more relationship-inspired lyrics.
Upcoming Shows:
October 4th - South Union Arts (with Tulsa & The Syllable Section), 8:00PM, $10
November 1st - Beat Kitchen (with Moros Eros), 6:00PM, $8.