Electa Villain

Tasty World
December 15, 2004

Led by the baritone, Jeff Buckley-style vocals of Justin Allmett and the Radiohead-style rhythm section of bassist C.k. Koch and drummer Jay Hoots, local three-piece Electa Villain pounded out a polished and powerful pallet of darkly melodic incendiary pop-rock scattered with gargantuan, resonant keyboard melodies which crashed off and vibrated along the hard walls inside the sparsely populated Tasty World.

      Despite the small crowd, it was easy to imagine this crew playing to the mad moshing masses, as their music resembles some of the feel of the dark and emotive pop of Evanescence, except for the superior vocals pouring from Allmett. While EV may well appeal to the young, pop-goth sect, punk undertones still lie heavily in the beats and bombshell bass lines of Koch and Hoots. Mid-set the heavy instrumentation built to even bolder clashing and crashing highs, before opening up to allow for deeper melodic vocal lows that proceeded to burst from the floor. The vocals climbed through explosive highs to merge and meld with the trio's overall sound, climaxing with bolder titanic waves of blissful, heavy sound.

      The constant Yorke and Buckley comparisons are unavoidable, but if you're going to emulate bold vocal heroes and industrial, instrumental mentors, Allmett and company could be doing a lot worse. And if you're going to shoot for such lofty goals, you had best make sure you're not just going to meet them, but surpass them; on this night, Electa Villain did just that. The drums were spot-on, the bass was locked, and the vocals soared straight through me.

Ben Gerrard - Flagpole, Ben Gerrard

Thursday, October 7, Tasty World

Electa Villain

It's been a while since Electa Villain officially formed. Justin Allmett and C.k. Koch met drummer Jay Hoots more than a year ago, but only since May of this year have the three performed around town — and gained a decent following in the meantime. The cliché "piano-driven pop-rock" doesn't exactly describe Electa Villain; Justin Allmett's vocals are too sublime and confident for platitudes. "It's all about [Allmett's] voice to some degree," says bassist C.k. Koch.

Light on guitar but drenched in piano soundscapes, the trio's music relies heavily on their influences — Allmett sounds not unlike the anguished lovechild of Jeff Buckley and Fiona Apple. Koch's distorted bass and Hoots' atmospheric beats contribute to what Koch describes as "a progressive-experimental-rock-pop kind of thing." Allmett, Koch and Hoots all attended music schools before moving to Athens to put their formal education to work in the indie rock scene. Local music legend Neal Fountain has also been known to make special guest appearances at Electa Villain performances. The band has recorded a six-song EP with plans for a November release.

Electa Villain opens for the retro-atmospheric rock band The Julia Dream, which hails from Atlanta, and perennial Athens new wave act Boulevard. Tonight's show will be the debut of Stephen James as a full member of Boulevard, as previous keyboardist Emily Beard moves on to pursue graduate school outside of Athens. While talented timekeeper James has been affiliated with countless bands in Athens — Pacific UV, Phosphorescent, and Breakheart Beat to name a few — this is his first time out from behind the drum set and into synthesizer and keyboard territory.

Christa Tinsley - Flagpole, Christa Tinsley

....as promised, local three-piece Electa Villain follows Count and begins exuding light emo-pop that builds and builds and builds, until taking on the magnitude of a heady Radiohead-like sound (less whining,more droning), before evolving into a Buckley-esque rock jam and on into a full arena-feeling avalanche, and then temporarily easing off the pedal to resemble something closer to Count's lyrical poetry before taking off for the Stratosphere once more, like one great, long-winded, never ending sentence, which is polarizing the listening audience into those who love it and those who find it all a bit much.

Ben Gerrard - Flagpole, Ben Gerrard

It's ok to be serious again, ya'll. When Green Day damn near sweeps the VMAs with an album of lengthy, political songs and even the pop song winner "Since you been gone" is really very rocking, you know that things are changing. Not that rock ever really left, but this kind of bigness, the kind Electa Villain even manages to do as a local band, faded a bit for a while, with the domination of the charts by hip hop and the kids being happy to listen to pop.

And they even have a logo, a heart half-red, half-black (surely not Dawwg-lovin statement?), with the latter turning into a pointy thing, a thing that points the way to a touch of prog-metal. Not much, just a dash, and it's mostly in the bass, but the songs are indeed big and dark with vocals that could almost be described as "torchy" if not for their desire to run up and down the scale. The ring of the strings on the acoustic guitar seems already to belong more to the Tabernacle than the 40 Watt.

Think System of a Down, but less hyper. My Chemical Romance provided with eye make-up remover. The tunes can be a but slow to get going, but, like other large objects, some end up gathering a decent amount of energy, partially due to sheer mass. If you have to pich the winner, it's the piano heavy "Stay", whick kicks off the EP. The band is clearly both sincere and ambitous, with a real talent for self-packaging, and if you feel there's still not enough serious music being made today, Electa Villain might well be your favorite new group.

Hillary Brown
- Flagpole

40 Watt Club
Friday, Dec. 9

Local trio Electa Villain has had a great year. Typically, a band playing house parties for a majority of it's first shows would be considered keeping it low-key, but the equation changes when those house parties happen in a barn. If you're new to town or spent a lot of time under a rock, the efficiently called "barn parties" were after-hours bashes that happened regularly over the past year or so at the former Habitat For Humanity house on Barber Street. Electa Villain played a load of them. The audience frequently jostled for a keg while the band delivered a soul crushing ballad: the upside, though, is that an after-hours party drags in people who are often lazy about going to shows. "(The Barn parties) helped us to make a footprint in a crowded scene that we may not have been able to make otherwise," says bassist/ multi-instrumentalist Ck Koch.

Koch and singer / keyboardist Justin Allmett have been best friends and collaborators since they were 14 years old. Sometime in late 2003, they met up with current drummer jay Hoots and, after a year of crafting their sound in a basement, they were ready to set things in motion, eventually being voted Best Up And Coming Band at the 2005 Flagpole Athens Music Awards.

The band has been playing around neighboring cities with plans to take the music to New York and Chicago towards the spring of next year./ This fall's debut self-titled EP was recorded more than a year ago, and the band plans to use it to draw new fans and hopefully garner label support for its next release. Get out there and catch Electa Villain while you can. You won't miss anything while jostling for a cup at the keg - at least not this week.

Paul Nunn - Flagpole