Beat Strings

BEAT STRINGS, ''STARLIGHT''
Uniting punk recklessness and new-wave tunefulness with little regard for musical niceties, this rising Iowa band tumbles headlong with fist-pump hooks and towering vocals. - Entertainment Weekly

any bands aspire to bring back the sex, the drugs, the grit and the dirt back into rock and roll. The very idea has become a bit trite or even cliché. This is because of the simple fact that many, many bands aspire to this ideal, and few have ever gotten close. The Beat Strings, however, exclaim that rock music that conveys sex, invokes sex, is gritty and dirty is their modus operandi and unlike so many others in the past, they actually deliver.

Coming from a variety of other bands(Innocence Broken, The Shape, A is Jump, Girls and Goats), the Beat Strings came together in 2003 with a shared vision, similar attitudes and lifestyles to create music. The Beat Strings have a wide range of sounds, from the Strokes melded with the Kings of Leon to the Pixies. There are hints of Led Zeppelin, obvious similarities to the Cult, one may even hear the Kinks, or even the newly high profile band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The Beat Strings rock hard with diversity and earnestness on this 10-track, 38-minute debut. There is enough color, variety and energy on this album to clearly set the Beat Strings apart from their contemporaries.

The album opens up strong with "Starlight.” Hints of the Strokes melded together with the Kings of Leon appear almost immediately. Excellent guitar work, hard crashing drums and exciting vocals get the blood pumping quickly.

"I Am Meth,” brings together the hard driving guitar sounds of the Pixies Joey Santiago with Frank Black-esque yelps. The vocal effects are very similar to those found on "Rock Music" off of Bossanova. This song is one of the hardest driving songs on the album as well a major set highlight. The vocal delivery, complete with screams and yelps, is right there along with the best rock and roll front men.

The album ends with the intriguing "Going Down Godless.” Here, again, a littlereggae beat pulses throughout the first half of the song with many tempo changes to follow. The final lead guitar line could be right out of the Beatles’ "I Want You (She's So Heavy).”The song and album come to a gentle finale with the subtle sounds of rain drops and what could be a rusty gate creaking in the wind. Giving one just enough pause to take it all in, before hitting the play button for another run through.

Sexy, honest, hard driving, quality rock and roll is not in oversupply state these days. Love Lust Wonder is a well produced, extremely clean rock album that exposes the strengths of all its members. The lyrics are heavily steeped in sex and the vocals have an amazing diversity and range. There is also incredible guitar work throughout the entire album, as well as perfect drums, tasty bass and excellent keyboards show that these guys have honed their skills. All members come together and help make this album a broad brush stroke of genius.

There truly seem to be no superfluous or gratuitous sounds on any song, everything melds cleanly and beautifully with calculated purpose – an amazing debut. The Beat Strings deserve a collective pat on the back, from all those artists who have tried, but failed so miserably before. - www.30music.com

Yeah. I did like this album. Not a road record. This is all "gonna go out tonight and set the world on fire soundtrack to my flash fire life lived in a second." Translation: drunk and lonely at 3 a.m. cruising MySpace for miss wrong. The Iowa hipsters, Beat Strings thrive in this climate. Their album Love, Lust, Wonder is the anthem for the hapless and horny. The retro-punk pop sound is nothing new, right off the top of my head I hear The Killers, The Rapture, and I probably should mention something about The Cure, as I just did. We're talking about Beat Strings, people. It's their review. Focus.

The songs are all pretty straight ahead, but the stand out track for me is "Strawberry Knees." It's almost a stab at Brit Rock hearkening back to a more meat and potatoes, bluesy guitar Radiohead. Another one worth mentioning is the island guitar groove "Miss Lady." The rest of the album is solid stuff. Nothing here really blows my mind. It's a grimy party record. I mean that in the best possible way. The song writing is great, the chronicles of a dirty old man in training seen through the eyes of a kid with a Mohawk and a crush on the head cheerleader. I imagine this album being written in the parking lot during the senior prom after all five of their dates left to dance with other guys and never came back. Somehow the haunted impressions of those pretty girls made their way into this record. The good with the bad, sour and sweet, the punk rock angst and sad crooner swagger. Love, Lust, Wonder is a sort of whiskey bottle redemption. A nasty break up and pathetic reunion on full blast. Keep the volume up, boys. - www.nowontour.com

The debut album from this Iowa-based quintet is a pleasingly messy, off-handedly hooky, and sprawlingly noisy exploration of pop sounds from the past 40 years, with an emphasis on skanky glam rock from the mid-'70s and a vocal style lifted directly from Robert Smith circa 1984. The Cure influence is felt especially heavily on "Before the Light," but the Beat Strings' sound derives from many other sources as well. You've got "Osiris," which starts out in a rather Clashy post-punk mode before collapsing into greasy Southern rock (which isn't quite as sloppy as it sounds on the surface); there's "Make Me a Message," which sounds strangely like a cabaret tune with its unsettling falsetto backing vocals; and then there's "Miss Lady," which is written in 4/4 but somehow manages to sound as if it were written in 7/8 (maybe it's those subtle snare taps falling on the far side of all the strong beats). The Beat Strings are romantic if you subscribe to the 19th century German school of romanticism, which favors sex and death in equal doses. If you subscribe to some other idea of romance, then you might just find them kind of weird and creepy. Either way, there's plenty to enjoy on this promising debut - Allmusic.com

The Beat Strings breathe new life into the musical mantra of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Sexual grittiness, the longing of sensuality, hints of substance references, and the foundation of rock and roll are impressions left upon a listener. These concepts and feelings have been carefully created by the influence of each member, and the experiences they have been through in life and in the band. The inception of The Beat Strings took place in the summer of 2003 between two friends sharing the same ideals, wanting to compose music with a rock sound heavily influenced by the grittiness of sex. They spent a year collaborating, and fabricating music while the addition of new members assisted in the complementation and expansion of their ideas. They continued this extensive musical creation process until late one night, a mysterious light in the sky exploded with fury in colors of purple, red, and gold. This light caused chaos amongst the group, which led them to proceed onto an impromptu tour. The mystery and vision of the light stayed with them on their tour, which was full of insight, intoxication, and a feeling that they were on the right path. After the tour's completion, two more member changes were made which helped fuse and complete the sound of the Beat Strings. The five naturally came together with an uncanny balance of failures, sounds, fantasies, and edginess, which made the Beat Strings. Their eclectic sounds range from Before the Light's dance infused rock sound complemented by the saxophone to Miss Lady's sensual sounds highlighted by the crooning voice of the vocalist. The Beat Strings' live shows are a breath of fresh air in the ever stagnant world of music. Their music will stay with you in your head…and in your bed as they continue to prove that the new movement of rock is upon us. It is Love, Lust, and Wonder. - www.betterpropaganda.com

Beat Strings’s curious mix of hipster dance rock, Pavement infused horns, and versatile Brit rock knowledge helps LOVE LUST WONDER stand out, especially on tracks like “Osiris”, where adrenaline and apathy intertwine. There’s more movement than mope here on a whole, which keeps the pace lively, even on the lazy-day tunes like the reggae-esqaue “Miss Lady”. Exuding as much pre-hits Cure and Clash as The Smiths, Beat Strings are gaining ground in their quest to mesh sexual tension to a rock ‘n roll beat, even if the beat is devoid of danger. - www.316productions.com