Church of the Red Museum

Best Local Album

Church of the Red Museum,

"Church of the Red Museum" (Manup Music)


Released by Manup Music, this year's most interesting local label, Church of the Red Museum's debut album is as dark as the drawing of two corpses on the cover. As musically deft as it is emotionally draining, the cabaret sound is a huge leap from the typical indie-rock known to pour from Columbus. For starters, check out "The Bay" at manupmusic.com. - Columbus Alive

Stephen Slaybaugh writes:

The faces of the Church of the Red Museum will be familiar to anyone following local music, the bands' members having played in such outfits as Go Evol Shiki! and Frostiva, but the jarring sounds of this new conglomeration are distinctly fresh ones. Forming near the end of 2005, the band quickly recorded and released a startling self-titled debut on local upstart label Manup in 2006. The band's striking blend of macabre themes and Tin Pan–greased, chanty din bodes well for even greater things in 2007.

see pics and video interview at

http://www.donewaiting.com/archives/2007/01/church_of_the_red_museum_2.php - Donewaiting.com and UWeekly

Church of the Red Museum
Church of the Red Museum
2006
Manup


About a year ago, in interviewing the Columbus, Ohio band the Sun in the wee hours of a winter night, I unknowingly opened a door into the entire Columbus music scene and how it functions. Chris Burney, the Sun's frontman, seemed tired and disinterested in interviewing until the subject of Columbus came up, and he was quick to act as its bushy-tailed musical tour guide. After describing the city itself, he and his bandmates rattled off an extensive list of Columbus' up and coming bands. One of those was Church of the Red Museum, a six-piece screaming tornado of a group with feet planted in almost as many styles as the band actually has feet. Those of you who are as geeky as I will notice that this Columbus collective takes its name from an X-Files episode featuring an extreme vegetarian church, alien DNA and teenagers dumped in the woods with "He Is One" painted on their bare chests. Red Museum is not the first band to claim X-Files allegiance, with Killswitch Engage and Eve 6 preceding them, but is definitely the best of the bunch.

Brian Travis, the singer and organist for the Church, kicks things off with his screaming fury in a twenty-one second song called "It Will Not Live." Travis's high pitched growls of "you don't know a thing about love," amongst other things, sounds like a combination of Tom Waits and Isaac Brock, a trend which would continue throughout this debut album. Besides the traditional bass, drums and guitars, the Church of the Red Museum features organs, played to almost video game effect in the second track, "A Flush Never Felt So Bad," violins and trumpets, featured magnificently in the highlight third track, "After All." Travis again recalls Brock as he creepily sings himself through one of the most horrific confessions since Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart." The `narrator's' wife leaves him, and he takes his revenge by killing her and her newfound love. Travis shows a knack for songwriting as he takes these grisly images and turns them into a dance worthy rock stomper.

"Not in This House" again masterfully combines non-traditional instrumentation to back Travis' growl. Trumpets and organs create some kind of back alley soundtrack to appropriately guttural tales of woe, and they shine like coins dropped down a sewer grate, like some lost treasure only attainable by a select few. "The Bay," another highlight, finds Waterboys-like violins backing a Tom Waits meets Nick Cave rock and roll freakout. "Shotgun Blast" and its male/female duet vocals of Travis and Leslie Niemczura marches along like some kind of '60s and '00s hybrid, like Love meets Gomez or the Zombies and Modest Mouse. "The Road" has turned out to be a fan favorite in a live setting, which unfortunately at this point is usually in and around Columbus, but hopefully that won't be the case for long. "Durham R.I.P." finds more of an Eastern European feel, the kind that has made such as splash with bands like Devotchka and Beirut, which then leads directly into the thirty-one second reprise of the opener, this time called, "It Can Not Die."

Church of the Red Museum is one of Columbus' hidden treasures, released on a local label and playing gigs mostly close to home. Members of their hometown neighbors, the Sun, discussed the Columbus music scene as a diversion from bad weather boredom and as an excuse to hang out with friends. Church of the Red Museum seem to have somehow surpassed that point, composing compelling, if not disturbing, folk meets tin pan alley meets jazz meets horror movie gritty rock and roll. With sounds like these, they won't be stuck in Columbus too long.

Similar Albums:
Modest Mouse- Good News for People Who Love Bad News
The Fever- In the City of Sleep
Man Man- Six Demon Bag

Listen Here

Download at
Church of the Red Museum - Church of the Red Museum


Terrance Terich
11.29.2006 - Treblezine!

Church of the Red Museum Releases Their Debut

Church of the Red Museum
Saturday, October 7th
Carabar


With a year or so under their belts and the enthusiastic buzz about them on the rise, Church of the Red Museum is striking while the iron is decidedly hot by releasing their first record this weekend. Self titled and appearing via local Manup Records, the album is a frenetic dash through 29 minutes of a Bohemian sounding dirge. Born largely from the reconstituted Columbus band Go Evol Shiki, the reassignment of players couldn’t have resulted in a much more disparate or improved sound. Where GES was discordant and exuberant, Church or the Red Museum plods along in a somewhat less cacophonous, yet sinister sounding polka punctuated by a screaming wail.

For a band of relative newness, they spend a considerable amount of time focusing on expiry. With a vocal griminess and depth that will likely forever be (favorably) compared to Tom Waits, and the heavy somber sounds of pyre-worthy organs, these songs seem forever close to death- or at the very least, calamity. Lyrical content doesn’t do much to dissuade the listener from the theme, as front man Brian Travis sings such foreboding lines as “there’s no escape from the murder in my head…” and “there’ll be a moment of truth before my baby breaks…There’ll be a shotgun blast.” While that sort of tone is almost universal throughout, one shouldn’t confuse the proximity to a funeral with lifelessness. On the contrary, the songs have a compelling drive and energy. That is due in part to interesting arrangements of violin and muted trumpets, crackling guitars, and unusual percussion. While some tracks blend almost seamlessly, others have abrupt changes in tempo or feel within a particular song, so that the listener is held on edge.

In a year of absolute bounty regarding Columbus releases, Church of the Red Museum’s offering will surely be a standout. There’s an urgency, a darkness, and a uniqueness that makes it stick with you. Bravo.

Joining CoRM at the Carabar will be the guitar orchestra/hurricane that is Brainbow, punk blasters El Jesus de Magico, and The Hills Have Eyes.

MP3: Shotgun Blast

Posted by Ben Chenoweth on October 6, 2006 08:35 AM | Permalink - WeColumbus

If the newest Columbus dark-wave darlings Church of the Red Museum seem as if they’ve been together for years, it’s because most of them have – in some respect. Singer and principle songwriter Brian Travis spans time with Tom Butler and Bil Jankowski in Go Evol Shiki!, who have in turn shared the stage with Leslie Jankowski’s former group Frostiva and current project the Flotation Walls. Donnie Roberts and Robbie Coleman hold up the rhythm section in The Gospel, and, of course, Donnie lives with Brian, and Bil and Leslie are married, so the whole thing wafts of a sort of musical incest that not only tends to typify the best Columbus bands, but also lends the group an air of both live and recorded comfort.

“We’ve been playing together a long time now,” said Coleman. “It definitely helps to have familiarity with one another.”

But, he continues, that doesn’t mean the songs sound anything like the members’ previous projects. Certain elements may stay intact, but it’s the experience, not the sound, that feels most familiar.

“If the rhythm section sounds like The Gospel’s, there’s a good reason for that,” he said. “But I don’t necessarily think that we’re influenced by our past groups.”

Tom Butler agreed. “COTRM was a chance to do something different from the other bands we were in. Brian’s songs are much more organic than anything we did in Go Evol Shiki!.”

They’re both completely dead-on; COTRM, for all its veteran Columbus underpinnings, sounds like nothing you’ve heard before, at least not from these musicians. Their self-titled debut (released on Manup Records, the local label run by Carabar owner Ron Barker) is moody and dark, a funeral dirge that calls up the Slaves or Nick Cave far more easily than Go Evol Shiki! or Frostiva. And maybe their poetic cries – and upsurging popularity – are in some way a product of time spent navigating the most unforgiving business in the world. This time, however, they’re taking a different tack.

“I think because our other bands had such trouble releasing a record, COTRM really pushed to get something out.” Leslie Jankowski explained. “Our record was recorded in three days, and it wasn’t too long before we got it pressed. It’s not a perfect record, but we’re proud of it, and I think it captures more of what we sound like live rather than an overproduced, unrealistic ideal.”

“We’re not spring chickens here,” Coleman added. “Hopefully, we kind of know what to do this time because of a lot of previous trial and error.”

It’s definitely working. For a band that started humbly in a basement a year ago, just another in the host of the members’ many projects – “Isn’t everybody in at least four bands?” Coleman mused – they’ve been privy to a lot of accomplishment. Supportive label? Check. Enthusiastic local following? Check. Well-received debut? Total check. And they’ve been busy planning a tour for spring of 2007 and maybe even grabbing a slot at next year’s South by Southwest. COTRM is truly poised to take the country, maybe even the world, by storm.

“Our response in Columbus has been really good and we appreciate it,” Leslie continued, “and we hope that when we start playing out of town more, that will continue. Someone in Sweden bought our CD off the Manup Web site, so who knows – maybe we’ll even get out there someday, too.”

“Ron has my parents tied up in the basement of Carabar,” Butler added. “He tells me that if we don’t rock, they get it.”

Church of the Red Museum will perform at Little Brother’s on Nov. 16; doors open at 8 p.m. The Midnighter, Guardrail Angel, the Wells and Lost State of Franklin support. For more information, please call Little Brother’s at 421-2025 or visit littlebrothers.com. For more information on Church of the Red Museum, please visit myspace.com/churchoftheredmusem online. - UWeekly

For the better part of this decade, we've been subjected to an endless cycle of proclamations that the album format is dead, and subsequent proclamations that one band, or another is out to save the album. In the past year alone, heavy hitters like My Chemical Romance, The Killers, and Fall Out Boy, have all proclaimed themselves musical saviors of the long playing format, while online indie store, Insound, ran a much publicized promotional campaign coinciding with the launch of their digital store titled, "Save The Album."

Although these sentiments are noble, they are a bit misleading. First, musicians haven't abandoned the album format, and neither have people who are serious about their music. Major labels have had a hard time moving units, and this has as much to do with dynamics in the marketplace as it has to do with major label quality. Secondly, important albums happen when an artist or group have a singular musical statement that resonates with the audience. Proclamations about the next great album that come from the artist are about as accurate as that guy you know who always brags about his large penis. The Killers did not make a great album, and that dude who claims to have an abnormally large penis, doesn't.

If there is an upside to all of the death of the album talk, it's when a band comes along, like Columbus, Ohio's Church of The Red Museum, and they produce a stirring musical statement, as they have done with their self-titled debut, then that album seems all the more striking. After all, we're conditioned to believe that no one makes albums any more.

Church of The Red Museum's debut is bracketed by two twenty second shouts, "Il Ne Peut Pas Vivre," and "Il Ne Mourra Pas." The first one finding Brian Travis scowling, "You don't know a thing about love," with the closing number looking inward, "I don't know a thing about love." The seven numbers in between see the band exploring tales of love gone horribly wrong, against the back drop of a dramatic, sensual, and vitriolic, gypsy killing orchestra.

The violin and electric piano in "After All" practically cry in blood, until the chorus, and the howl of Brian Travis emerges. All of a sudden, jagged garage guitars kick in and that pain is transformed into anger and vengeance. In "Not In This House," the loss and loneliness of an empty house, is spurred by keys that alternate between spooky and surreal, bass drum heavy percussion and that omnipresent throat of Travis.

"The Bay" showcases the ability of The Church of The Red Museum, to effectively juxtapose, seemingly harmless melodies, next to an ire inherent with a broken heart. It starts with pleasantly, sunny and swirling keyboards, and a trip to the seaside. The line, "I can still see the sunset in your eyes," is sweetly reminiscent. Meanwhile, the spit and spite is lurking patiently in the background. When the time comes, Travis is ready to bite, "I've been waiting on your love/I can't wait here any more/I've been wasted on your love."

By the time we reach "Durham R.I.P" it's evident that if Travis and The Church of The Red Museum, had one last note, and one last breath, it would be one harrowing, scornful, message. It's the bitter end. It's the death scene ending with the final nail in the coffin. It's one last chance for the violin and organ to wail away before their imminent demise. As "Durham R.I.P" bleeds into the screaming, "Il Ne Mourra Pas," the death of their album is complete, and the much maligned album as an art form is saved (again).

Church of The Red Museum - The Bay [Download] - I Rock Cleveland