Eagle*Seagull

Eagle*Seagull in CMJ!

Singer Eli Mardock will be forgiven for pouring his heart into puddles on the floor if only because he ditches fellow Nebraskan Conor Oberst to emulate an elder, more poetic Robert Smith. That he's guilty of a little Cure worship is a no-brainer, but Eagle*Seagull carry the influence well, milking ambience from heart-soaked tailspins and urgent, piano-assisted overtures while keeping a firm hold on the string connecting emotion to pop music. The cracked falsetto backed by cinematic weight is a familiar sound, but here, it's not so much calculated as it is beautifully crafted for nostalgia and resonance. - Steven Chen, CMJ

"Last fall, just before we left Omaha, we began to hear the faint stirrings of buzz for Eagle*Seagull, a band from nearby Lincoln. They'd played a couple shows around town and folks seemed to dig them. A lot:

"Nebraska's version of the Arcade Fire!" crowed the excitable, middle-aged douche who reviews music for Omaha's weekly fishwrap...

Whatever. The band prefers to downplay the comparisons to bands du jour such as the Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, choosing instead to direct attention to their fondness for iconic songwriters like Leonard Cohen and classic indie-rock acts along the lines of Pavement rather than be labeled as just another band cashing in on the current wave of Hot List music.

The thing is, there's no avoiding such comparisons. Oh, the tips of the hat to Cohen are there (opening track "Lock and Key" particularly) but balking at the similarities to a band like Wolf Parade -- the yelped vocals and lurching, uneven song structures -- is impossible -- pointless, even. Listen to album anchor "Your Beauty is a Knife I Turn on My Throat" and tell us E*S doesn't sound like they're from Montreal. You can't. Just like you can't deny the song is pretty fucking great.

The vaguely orchestral Eagle*Seagull (iTunes) is a debut so strong it didn't simply ignite a bidding war among labels, it begat a label: Nashville imprint Paper Garden, helmed by Nebraska expat Bryan Vaughan. Weirdly, the band desperately wants their album to be reviewed by Pitchfork. Seriously. This strikes us as a little off-putting mostly because we expect our indie-rock bands to be all coy and shit about press outlets like Pitchfork. Or at the very least only lust for column inches in the hipster bible within the secrecy of recording studios and overloaded vans on I-80, but whatever. A hometown show in April with current PFork Best New Music pick Tapes n' Tapes should get Eagle*Seagull the attention of that other Chicago music blog"

- www.boozeismymama.com

Eagle Seagull (Paper Garden). 4 ½ ribs- midwest meat.

There’s something inspiring about music that comes out of Omaha, Nebraska. There’s an almost ever-present indie rock brand on everything, though bands with that moniker blur their boundaries and carry their own weight. Eagle Seagull have their own corn-fed vibe, with bleak, ominous clouds looming over half their tunes and a twisted positive flip side.
The self-titled album is incredibly moody. It opens with the dooming “Lock And Key” followed by upbeat and hopeful “Photograph.” While the entire album is stellar, highlights include: the morose “It Was A Lovely Parade,” the deceivingly charming “Your Beauty Is A Knife I Turn On My Throat,” “Holy,” which is a celebration of life, though it’s dripping with tears. I have to plug myself into this one. For someone who spent a year in a halfway house in Omaha in the late ‘80s, I know how ya feel boys. Wait a few months and the sun will eventually show its face again.

- Will Jordan - Rib Mag

Tow pizza makers. An urban planner. A social worker. A Laundromat attendant. An unemployed musician. Individually they make up a small portion of Nebraska society: drinkers, music makers, and current or former college students. Collectively they are Eagle*Seagull, a spanking new indie rock band bubbling out of the Lincoln and Omaha music scenes. “At the moment, I do nothing,” said Eli Mardock, singer/songwriter for the group, “A couple weeks ago I lost my job.”

By ditching the day job for a band gig in Des Moines, IA, Mardock made one of those life choices that every artist must face at one point or another. Regardless, he is keeping plenty busy without work. Eagle*Seagull, which formed about a year and a half ago at the University of Nebraska, is the first band signed to Paper Garden Records. Their sound, a muddled mix of influences such as Blonde Redhead and Broken Social Scene, is slowly squeezing itself into the indie rock scene, as the band works its way from small town shows to an eventual east coast tour.

“A lot of the songs are older songs that I’d written,” said Mardock of their self-titled release. “I think the n ext album will be way better. There were only two songs I did any collaboration on. On the next one, I’d like to have at least half [be written with other people].” He describes their shows as explosive, brash, and musically dissonant, a combination that emanates from the band’s various personalities. This is contradictory to the feel of the album, which is much slower; it’s more of an experiment in indie noise, with mixes of new electric and classical composition styles. For lyrics, Mardock finds influence in various poets: Ginsburg, Garcia-Lorca, Neruda, and Leonard Cohen. “I’m not really into the idea of writing songs that have great and meaningful things to say,” he confesses when queried about the storyline behind the album. “Some are about relationships, but I hate hearing myself say that.”

Eagle*Seagull spends its down time like most twenty-something kids biding their time in Nebraska and trying to make it as a band. There’s the lingering around the music scene, traveling to the various shows they play at colleges, the hanging out at Ya Ya’s, the pizza parlor where the guitarist and drummer work, and of course, a lot of drinking. - Megan Martin, Amplifier Magazine

I have been listening to this self-titled cd from Eagle*Seagull for a few weeks now while trying to think of something significant to write about it.
Getting the basics out of the way, Eagle*Seagull is a sextet hailing from Lincoln, Nebraska who have been playing live for a little over a year. This is the band's first album.
Now to the sound. I suppose that people could refer to this as "melodic indie pop," which would mean absolutely nothing since pop music, by nature, is supposed to be melodic. If it isn't, then there is something definitely wrong. Others might refer to the songs as "hook-laden," which again is a moot point for reasons similar to the above. It could be music for the mature indie rocker, what is now referred to as the "yindie," which would do the band a horrible disservice, since "yindie" often implies boring. Then, one might compare this band to other bands that have a similar sound. Say, for example, Bright Eyes. After all, Eagle*Seagull does sing "let's get drunk and forget ourselves" ("Death Could Be at the Door") and doesn't Young Master Oberst sing about getting drunk and forgetting himself a lot? This, however, would also do the band a disservice, since its sound is both richer and more heartbreaking than anything this reviewer has heard on a Bright Eyes album. Eagle*Seagull has its moments of teary-eyed cheerfulness ("Photograph," my personal favorite) mixed with funeral party despair (Again, "Death Could Be at the Door") and perhaps that is the reason that I am still listening to this disc weeks after the fact. - The People's Dance Party - Liz