The Anonymous Band

The music of Burlington band Anonymous (www.myspace.com/ anonymousjams) is a blend of so many styles that they use the term JamRockFunkDubTron to only begin describing their songwriting ethos.

With their hands in bluesy guitar solos, precise synth loops and darkly subsonic low-end and sizzling horns, each number takes on a completely different personality than the one before.

Careful to avoid the term “jam band,” vocalist/rhythm guitarist Nick MacDaniels stresses the collaborative nature of all of the band’s six members.

They recently took out a mortgage on a circa-1940s bungalow in Burlington to use as a rehearsal and creative space. The house’s only use is for music, which allows them to practice and write spontaneously. In addition, Anonymous is also renovating the house so that it is highly energy efficient.

“It’s been cool to see our music improve over the months, along with the improvements to the house,” MacDaniels added. Anonymous plans on ramping up their tour schedule in the spring with shows in Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina and surrounding areas.
- Yes Music Weekly

Names don’t really mean much in a band called “Anonymous,” and that’s OK. After all, this group wants to be known for its music.

According to the band’s Web site, Anonymous realizes that today’s music listener has a wide array of genres to choose from. As such, said singer Nick MacDaniels, the band plays a wide array of sounds.

“We like to play a little something for everyone,” MacDaniels said, noting how the band jumps around through rock music and even dabbles in reggae, funk and bluegrass, too.

Anonymous has been working to perfect its sound since it formed in Maryland in 2000. According to MacDaniels, members went to high school together and continued playing after enrolling at Elon University. The band expanded here and made a name for itself performing weekly concerts at The Lighthouse.

“The crowds kept getting bigger and crazier and more and more people started singing the words to our original songs,” MacDaniels recalled. “It was really cool — The Lighthouse offered us a home venue in which to grow and develop musically.”

That growth took a new direction earlier this year when the band released “Meet Anonymous,” its first professionally recorded CD. Anonymous will hold a CD release party to celebrate the feat at 10 p.m. Saturday at Brewballs, 3730 S. Church St., Burlington. - Burlington Times News

Hailing from the growing central North Carolina town of Burlington, Anonymous is a young band that has encapsulated the first part of their evolution in their second album, Meet Anonymous.
anon.jpg

There's more than a touch of a band from another, more northerly Burlington in their DNA - the liner notes give credit to Chad Taylor for "saxophones, skyscrapers, and beebops" - and it's clear that their style is directly influenced by that now-defunct quartet. But like all devotees of that band from the other Burlington, Anonymous has done some growing up over the last 4 years.

While rock and roll and guitar solos and bass grooves all have a say in Anonymous' sound, there's a spice that gives the music a whiff of classic jam and groove music, where no style is left behind. One the bobbing and weaving "A Big Game," horns add punch to the band's rhythmic interplay, and the tune opens up into a tense instrumental jam that affords plenty of space for trumpet, keys, and guitar to run wild before satisfyingly crashing back into a vocal section.

Anonymous clearly has an epic feel in mind, constructing songs that are meant to be fully-fleshed experiences in themselves, even if you go far away and back again in the process.

"Picnic With Hines" sounds at first like The Charlie Daniels Band jamming with Squirrel Nut Zippers, but eventually covers all kinds of territory in it's 7-plus running time, even diverging into psuedo-hip-hop for a spell. Alternately, the next track, "The Queen," is completely different, concise and clearly constructed. "Dub Synth" is equally slender, and might be the best sounding track on the disc, a lively near-instrumental spiked with horn blasts and set to a righteous rhythm. - Homegrown Music Network