all spots to black

Think late 70s roots rock. Think of new england winter. Think of a towering stack of indie comics falling over onto the floor.

When All Spots To Black frontman Fil Krohnengold began his music career, he was a scant 11 years old - a member of a touring choir based in new jersey, traveling the states and overseas - doing school work from the seat of a retired Greyhound bus for a month at a time. Looking back, the trajectory was probably set back then.

Now a restless multi-instrumentalist, Fil Krohnengold is a career collaborator - having toured/recorded with Jeff Tweedy (wilco) and Gary Louris (the jayhawks) in Golden Smog, with the band Gomez, with Ben Harper, Duncan Sheik, and others. Now in Los Angeles, he makes his musical home as a member both the americana/alt-country and indie rock families.

In All Spots To Black, Krohnengold combines the stark simplicity of a guitar trio with lush vocal harmonies in a palette reminiscent of panels from the indie comics he credits with much of his inspiration for songwriting. Hang-gliding in the appealing chasm between craggy despair and defiant vulnerability, the band falls somewhere between the moody roar of Mark Kozelek's Red House Painters and Tonight's-the-Night-era Neil Young. This is harmonic rock played with a sort of thoughtfully grim resignation that, when bolstered by an artful bottleneck slide guitar, transcends the inherent melancholy of the songs. The music is brainy, but mellow, but loud.

The band also features bass player Lucas Cheadle (lucinda williams, michelle shocked), drummer Al Sgro (gary jules, alexi murdoch) and singer (and monster songwriter herself) Holly Conlan.

Look for their record The Water Tower this winter.