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MP3 The Fearnots - Spring 2005 EP
4 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Emo, ROCK: Math Rock
Details:
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YOU MAY BUY THROUGH THE ITUNES MUSIC STORE!
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At times, the three members of the Fearnots might not all play the same rhythm or time signature, but the band is always locking in with one another and playing as a unit. Their approach combines off-kilter meters with the drive of vintage punk rock. Songs frequently break from the standard verse-chorus-bridge structure, instead going for several different parts that feel cohesive and compelling. While the sound might be comparable to math rock, the Fearnots create songs with a cathartic arc, with a destination in mind, that don''t merely show off the ability to riff in 5/4.
Hille Paakkunainen plays a guitar two strings away from traditional open tuning and, as a result, many of her song sketches are based on melodies rather than power chords. Mike Shanley writes bass lines that serve double duty: rhythm parts and extra counterpoints that harmonize with the guitar. The former quality works well in tandem with drummer David Petrou, whose approach touches on thinking drummers such as Minutemen/fIREHOSE''s George Hurley: launching patterns that contrast, but that do not contradict, the contributions of the melodic instruments, while viscerally driving the beat. As a vocalist, Paakkunainen comes across like a belter. She can wail, boiling over into screams one moment, and, at other times pulling back for a more gentle sound that keeps the intensity going.
The band came together in the fall of 2004. Shanley is a veteran of several local bands and concurrently plays with the Mofones. Before moving to Pittsburgh for school, Petrou was a leg of the 3-piece wunderkinder forming alternative-rock Barney''s Bicycle in his hometown of Anaheim, California. A native of Finland, where she played in the death metal band Raven Sky, Paakkunainen also came to Pittsburgh for school after living briefly in Glasgow and performing as a singer/songwriter in Glasgow and London.
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The Fearnots have been compared to Bjork, fIREHOSE, Minutemen, Phantom Tollbooth, Overpass, Polvo, Red Crayola, Slovenly, Sonic Youth, Throwing Muses, Victory at Sea.
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Review from the Pittsburgh City Paper, May 26, 2005:
Fearnots
Subterranean Homesick Rock
Writer: CINDY YOGMAS
"Hille is switching guitars, but that doesn''t mean this is the mellow portion of the evening," says Fearnots'' bassist Mike Shanley, as guitarist and vocalist Hille Paakkunainen puts down her electric in favor of an acoustic at a Gooski''s show earlier this month. "That comes later ... but only for about 90 seconds."
And that about sums up the basis of the Fearnots'' sound -- nothing stays constant for very long, and don''t expect to know what''s coming next. Fearnots songs sound like they have been put through a food processor and then reassembled at random. They switch unexpectedly between unusual and complicated time signatures and key changes. At any moment, Hille''s vocals can shift from soft and sweet to completely volatile. And all three members -- Shanley, Paakkunainen and drummer David Petrou -- are deeply engrossed in their own intricate patterns, each playing something completely different, yet following each other''s grooves in and out of each riff.
"That''s what I think is so fun," says Petrou. "I don''t enjoy playing music where it''s exactly the same thing at the same time. I think it''s really fun when there''s a lot of interplay, like marbles being thrown at each other."
Petrou and Paakkunainen, both transplanted to Pittsburgh for graduate school, met several years ago at the 61C Café in Squirrel Hill. Both had previously been in bands -- Petrou played in a group called Barney''s Bicycle in his hometown of Anaheim, Calif., and Paakkunainen, originally from Finland, spent time as a singer-songwriter, an accordian player and a member of a death-metal band (she later took voice lessons to learn how to properly growl). Eventually, they decided that playing music again would be the perfect distraction from their studies, and after some time together as a duo, they hooked up with veteran Pittsburgh rocker Mike Shanley, whose past and current endeavors include Mystery Date, Bone of Contention and the Mofones. But it wasn''t an immediately perfect union.
"Hille said, ''Okay, we''re working on this song and it goes like this, then it does this thing, then it does a little bit of this thing again, and then it goes like this.'' And I''m thinking, ''Okay, well, the first note is F-sharp and then where do we go?'' It was like nothing I have ever played before," says Shanley. But after several months of practice, a growing number of live performances and a recently released EP recorded locally at +/- Studios, the band''s prominence is becoming more and more apparent.
Members of the group are aware of the unavoidable math-rock comparisons that their atypical dynamics and song structures conjure, but they don''t wholeheartedly agree with it. Both Shanley and Petrou are big Mike Watt admirers and credit his former endeavors, especially fIREHOSE and the Minutemen, as big influences on their sound. And Hille''s special way of tuning, which she happened upon by accident, sets their sound apart from most anything else.
"There are some things that are very specific," Shanley says regarding the elements of each song. "But it''s not rigid. I do feel like there are some math-rock elements to what we do, but I really don''t like math rock, so I either shy away from using that description or say it''s heavier on the rock than on the math."
Adds Paakkunainen : "I don''t think it''s math rock at all."
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