Tuesday, January 17, 2006

J-Stone’s Pick of the Week – Black Lights

By Andrew Johnstone

Andrew Johnstone, creator and host of the Lonestar State Radio Show offers up his Pick of the Week – Black Lights

I’ve been listening to Black Lights for a while now, and you’d be surprised how many people from Arlington I’ve encountered that don’t know them (you might also be surprised by how many people from Arlington I encounter).

I’m hearing a brand new sound from these newer songs they’ve tossed up online and the future is looking pretty dang cool for this band. The first time I heard “Cowboy Justice” I was sold on this band and their fusion of multiple genres. I hesitate to tack on such a general and useless descriptor as indie to these guys, because they’re only classified as such due to the inability to pin them into anyone genre. You can hear hints of jazz and country and more modern dance rock beats, as well as elements I just can’t put my finger on. This is the melting pot of music that can only come out of the metroplex.

With songs like “Bullet” it’s easy to see where the “indie” distinction comes from, as anyone could easily confuse that song with something from Franz Ferdinand, but look a little deeper and it strikes you a little differently. The song ritards for the break down, deceptively it throws you off and leaves you ill prepared for the return to an even more kick ass beat. This is a great play between popular music, which is designed to entertain, and more artistic music which has some sort of ulterior motive. Those Black Light guys are playing with our minds. Songs like “Walk” really justify the self-appointed descriptor of “jazz punk.” There’s this slow tom heavy drum beat and smooth jazz piano coupled with the gravel grated vocals, it makes you want to think adult contemporary for just a moment, but no, no sir this is rock and or roll and its got a nice beat that you can really dance to. Meanwhile songs like “Cancerkiss” teeter on some sort of insane border between epic and pop, containing an obviously expansive idea into a five minute song. The drum work is pretty fantastic on this track, sometimes sounding like Keith Moon’s all over the place style and the play between the guitar and keys pushes right to the edge of something huge, some sort of wicked solo and then steps right back from the cliff and leaves the listener constantly in anticipation.

Modern underground rock music seems to be all about the mixing of genres, though for the most part these fusions are fusions of more modern genres like prog rock mixed with disco rock. Black Lights is appropriately bringing out elements of multiple genres such as jazz, and experimenting with a very different kind of “indie” sound and forging ahead with something that I think is really worth looking out for. Bands like Black Lights deserve the designation of “Alternative” because they truly provide an alternative to pretty much the rest of music as a whole.

So the short and the long of it is, check this band out, try something new, and seek out their next live performance, I guarantee good times will be had.

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