Battle Creek

What would happen if Moneen met The Arcade Fire on a porch in a morning smelling of John Mayer's "Clarity" and sat down to jam with some horns? I have no idea, but it seems that Battle Creek has come up with a suggestion on their recent album "Hold Hope Oh Withered Tree".

Like other bands located in the crossfire between indie and oldschool emocore (think Bear Vs Shark) There's easily audible passion and honesty in this band's vocalwork, and this is also where my Moneen-parallel comes in, as the voices on this record are more than a little similar to theirs. The songs are driven in turn by guitar and trumpet, and the resulting expression drifts lazily around like the fresh air of a summer morning where you step outside in the grass with bare feet.
Grabbing your attention from the get-go we have the third song "The Lion's Tail" with its gang chorus "S-T-O-R-E! H-O-U-S-E!" imprenting itself on your memory for no sensible reason. It's just an upbeat track that puts a smile on your face with its mood and without you needing to have a clue about what it's about. Two tracks later "Birds Of A Feather" has the same kind of intriguing effect and the ninth song "Sculptures (Of Meadows And Grasses" also fascinates with it's trumpet line.

For the rest of the album however, the band seems to get a bit lost in their own soundscape. The songs seem to falter, as momentum is lost by getting tied up in too long and too pretty instrumental passages and that also ends up posing as an unfortunate overall trait of character. It's pleasant and intriguing to listen to for sure, but the dynamics and compositions on most of the songs need some tweaking before they'll really get anyone excited.

Apart from that however, the band's style alone is odd enough to have awakened my curiosity, and as "Hold Hope Oh Withered Tree" does have a handful of wellworking moments, I won't hesitate from recommending it to everyone who's thirsty for something fresh. [7]
Download: The Lion's Tail, Birds Of A Feather, Sculptures (Of Meadows And Grasses)
For the fans of: Gracer, Bear Vs Shark, Moneen, MewithoutYou
- Rockfreaks.net

What would happen if Moneen met The Arcade Fire on a porch in a morning smelling of John Mayer's "Clarity" and sat down to jam with some horns? I have no idea, but it seems that Battle Creek has come up with a suggestion on their recent album "Hold Hope Oh Withered Tree".

Like other bands located in the crossfire between indie and oldschool emocore (think Bear Vs Shark) There's easily audible passion and honesty in this band's vocalwork, and this is also where my Moneen-parallel comes in, as the voices on this record are more than a little similar to theirs. The songs are driven in turn by guitar and trumpet, and the resulting expression drifts lazily around like the fresh air of a summer morning where you step outside in the grass with bare feet.
Grabbing your attention from the get-go we have the third song "The Lion's Tail" with its gang chorus "S-T-O-R-E! H-O-U-S-E!" imprenting itself on your memory for no sensible reason. It's just an upbeat track that puts a smile on your face with its mood and without you needing to have a clue about what it's about. Two tracks later "Birds Of A Feather" has the same kind of intriguing effect and the ninth song "Sculptures (Of Meadows And Grasses" also fascinates with it's trumpet line.

For the rest of the album however, the band seems to get a bit lost in their own soundscape. The songs seem to falter, as momentum is lost by getting tied up in too long and too pretty instrumental passages and that also ends up posing as an unfortunate overall trait of character. It's pleasant and intriguing to listen to for sure, but the dynamics and compositions on most of the songs need some tweaking before they'll really get anyone excited.

Apart from that however, the band's style alone is odd enough to have awakened my curiosity, and as "Hold Hope Oh Withered Tree" does have a handful of wellworking moments, I won't hesitate from recommending it to everyone who's thirsty for something fresh. [7]
Download: The Lion's Tail, Birds Of A Feather, Sculptures (Of Meadows And Grasses)
For the fans of: Gracer, Bear Vs Shark, Moneen, MewithoutYou
- Rockfreaks.net

The word is on the tip of my tongue.

I'm listening to the debut album by Battle Creek and struggling to come up with the perfect adjective to describe the band's sound.

Folksy? No, that's not quite it. Artsy? Sorta, but not exactly. Stirring Emotive? Complex? Yes, yes and yes, but none of those terms sum it up.

Ah, I think I've got it now. The album is really, really Guelph. It is soooo Guelph.

Of course, I realize that Guelph is technically a noun, not an adjective, but permit me some grammatical leeway and I'll explain.

The album, titled Hold Hope, O Withered Tree!, somehow captures the spirit and the idiosyncrasies of the city in which it was recorded.

Not that I'm an expert on Guelph or anything, but I know this much about the Royal City: it's a liberal-minded town brimming with artists and poets and musicians and other creative types.

It is a city that remains connected to the earth and wildlife through a university geared toward agriculture and veterinary sciences.

And it's the kind of city that could spawn a band like Battle Creek, a five-member collective whose songs are artistic and poetic and earthy. In fact, the majority of the 11 tracks on the album are impassioned odes to nature, animals or art.

But this is no retro-hippie-flower- power stuff. It's progressive and affecting and definitely worth hearing.

Though Battle Creek's music could lazily be labelled "indie rock," such tags don't do the band justice. For a debut album, Hold Hope Oh Withered Tree is a bold and adventurous fusion of diverse musical genres.

It takes guts, for instance, for an indie band to incorporate accordion, glockenspiel, cello, violin and trombone into pop-based songs.

Comparisons could be drawn to Arcade Fire, Polyphonic Spree, Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene, but Battle Creek is not derivative of any of them.

When the album fades to a close -- in one of the most gorgeous outro melodies since Hey Jude's na-na-na -- the listener is left with a sense of happiness, fulfilment and, um, Guelphiness.

- Colin Hunter - The KW Record

The word is on the tip of my tongue.

I'm listening to the debut album by Battle Creek and struggling to come up with the perfect adjective to describe the band's sound.

Folksy? No, that's not quite it. Artsy? Sorta, but not exactly. Stirring Emotive? Complex? Yes, yes and yes, but none of those terms sum it up.

Ah, I think I've got it now. The album is really, really Guelph. It is soooo Guelph.

Of course, I realize that Guelph is technically a noun, not an adjective, but permit me some grammatical leeway and I'll explain.

The album, titled Hold Hope, O Withered Tree!, somehow captures the spirit and the idiosyncrasies of the city in which it was recorded.

Not that I'm an expert on Guelph or anything, but I know this much about the Royal City: it's a liberal-minded town brimming with artists and poets and musicians and other creative types.

It is a city that remains connected to the earth and wildlife through a university geared toward agriculture and veterinary sciences.

And it's the kind of city that could spawn a band like Battle Creek, a five-member collective whose songs are artistic and poetic and earthy. In fact, the majority of the 11 tracks on the album are impassioned odes to nature, animals or art.

But this is no retro-hippie-flower- power stuff. It's progressive and affecting and definitely worth hearing.

Though Battle Creek's music could lazily be labelled "indie rock," such tags don't do the band justice. For a debut album, Hold Hope Oh Withered Tree is a bold and adventurous fusion of diverse musical genres.

It takes guts, for instance, for an indie band to incorporate accordion, glockenspiel, cello, violin and trombone into pop-based songs.

Comparisons could be drawn to Arcade Fire, Polyphonic Spree, Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene, but Battle Creek is not derivative of any of them.

When the album fades to a close -- in one of the most gorgeous outro melodies since Hey Jude's na-na-na -- the listener is left with a sense of happiness, fulfilment and, um, Guelphiness.

- Colin Hunter - The KW Record