Element57

Once called 4th Plane Jaiant, Element57 has relaunched themselves under a new name and a brand new sound that is powerful, sleek, gigantic and yet thoroughly filled with hooks.
Gone are the slightly jam band vibes of 4th Plane Jaiant. With the new album, "Radiate", Element57 has reinvented itself in a poppy yet intelligent, arty manner, creating a shoud that is is highly distinctive, even difficult to describe.
At the center of the new sound is a giant wall of fuzzy guitar, like some rumbling colossus that comes out of a guitar amp. It's slightly surreal and even a little alien, but always massive and thotoughly setting the band apart from just about everything out there. Picture the harder edges of Bush, Stone Temple Pilots or Audioslave, with the linear, single-minded, fuzzy lines of Morphine (without that band's dreary, psychotropic blues elements however). Bits of funk or straight ahead rock are given this blurry, hazy treatment, while the songwriting is poppy yet sophisticated, in a style not too dissimilar to Peter Gabriel's "So" period or The Police's "Synchronicity" era.
Singer Chris Galyon even sometimes sounds like Gabriel or Bush's Gavin Rossdale, emotive the whole time and mysteriously blending in (almost too well) with the fuzzy wall of guitar.
The album opens with "Woke Up Late", with a driving, grinding kind of disjointed modern rock, as Galyon's melodies soar above the roar of their signature sound.
"All Remaining Pieces" has a pleading, plaintive quality in a more stright ahead rock vein, where Gabriel's "So" aesthetic really comes into light.
"Speak So Loud" has a slower grind, is slightly dreamy with that enormous guitar sound lumbering in a pleasant way. "Swept Away" has a poppy quality, a little like Semisonic with much bigger balls. On "Too Close" the fuzziness gets a little mellow and quiet for this somewhat somber tune, and the album closes with the memorable "Freedom," which brings on Bush just a bit.
"Radiate" is a nifty debut for a new band built from an old one, showcasing a truly unique and innovative sound. With a mere six songs, it'll be more than a little interesting to see where Element57 goes next.
Andre Hagestedt - OregonLive.com

Nearly two years in the making, this epic, 4th Plane Jaiant's second album, was certainly worth the wait. At times leader Chris Galyon sounds like Peter Gabriel fronting Rush. Other times the band sounds a lot like The Police. But at all times this stirring quintet displays impeccable taste and the skill to pull off whatever musical gymnastics they choose to perform.
As a guitarist, Galyon is the Alex Lifeson of the band. As a vocalist, he is Peter Gabriel, he is Sting. He is Colin Hay of Men at Work. Offsetting Galyon's prodigious fretwork, Jason Wilbur adds jazz-inflected strains on sax and Jimmy Sanders injects soulful organ and keyboard layers. The rhythm section, bassist Andy Kallenberger and drummer Joe Gardener, lay heavy reinforcement to the foundation.
The lead track, "Let it Breathe", rides a stanpeding staccato guitar lick through the steep terrain of the verses. The chorus creates a new metal sound: big guitars and sax knocking it out together, "Everything In Between" dances wildly in the verses, before slashing through the choruses.
"As Far As I can Go" is blue-eyed Reggae along the lines of Sting or Colin Hay. A strong, memorable chorus makes of this track world class stuff. "Kerosene Angel" typifies the Rush connection. A gorgeously vibrant chorus jackhammers its way into the brain. Stunning stuff. The gentle strains of "Sure to Come" accented by Sanders' chunky piano fills, is another stand out track.
They all are truly stellar cuts, each of the ten included in the package. 4th Plane Jaiant exhibit complete command of their idiom- This is intellingent music, executed with pinpoint precision by superb musicians. Lyrically, Galyon is introspective and poetic, without being obtuse. He does not posture or pose. Instead he confronts his demons artistically, with carefully constructed didactic polemics, hewn from experience and chiseled from knowledge hard won. It's powerful stuff. Very powerful. - Two Louies Magazine Portland, OR

"They've got national raves; now the pop band seeks local ones"
That DIY aesthetic, champoined by punk rock in the 1970's is still alive and well, thriving in Portland's sleek, powerfull and poppy 4th Plane Jaiant.
The approach has yielded powerful results. The five-piece is the proud recipient of awards and accolades on the national level. The group has been a finalist in Billboard Magazine's 1999 Best unsigned band contest, getting heard by the likes of Elton John, Hugh Padgham, Lisa Loeb and Melissa Etheridge. The band won a similar award in the Independent Music Awards contest in 2001 and was a finalist in the Jim Beam National Rock Band Search, too. 4th Plane Jaiant has ruled the Internet, too, with enormous numbers of downloads from the band's website, as well as through Sonic Blue, an Mp3 player manufacturer.
And the list goes on-all the result of the bnad members' own hard work, says guitarist/vocalist/producer, Chris Galyon. "We've got a lot of national stuff, a lot of awareness," Galyon says. "For every 1,000 things you do, one thing hits and gets you to another level. There's a lot of luck involved, perseverance and just a lot of continuing to submit, continuing to submit.
"It takes lots of effort, touring. ... You can't depend on anyone else."
For a while, though, the band did depend on someone else, and with a happy outcome. Portland-area singer-songwriter Andy Harrison, who once owned a local radio-promotion company that got 4th Plane Jaiant's music played on 15 Z-100 stations around the US as well as on college radio.
What listeners have been hearing is a unique mix of sound created by Galyon, saxophone player Jason Wilbur, bassist Andy Kallenberger, and drummer Troy Schenk and many times keyboardist Jimmy Sanders. It's a bit of spacey pop with hints of metal, new wave and prog jazz.
4th Plane Jiant plans to release and give away a CD single from an upcoming album in the works at a Saturday night show- good chance to catch a rising star! - The Oregonian

4th Plane Jaiant, a Pacific Northwest fan favorite, is a good example of a talented alternative band that's beginning to grow too dang big for it regional britches.
Through constant gigging, snatching firsts at battles of the bands and by using the internet cleverly, a very good regional band with a distinctive sound has made the long, laborious climb upward toward national recognition.
One of the nice things about living in the Four Conrners, thanks to small but interesting venues we get to see bands on their way up.
Stylelistically, they are all over the map, and their 2001 release, "Bipolar" shows it aplenty. There are grungy funk grooves, metal guitar riffs, jazzy diversions, hints of reggae and ska, and plenty of straight up and electronically filtered guitar and sax distortion to plain old soul honk. Although they have been compared to DMB, The Police and Peter Gabriel, the shouldn't be, becasue they really have their own style going. These fellas can flat out swing.
Galyon's intelligent songs are just filed with hooks, and their tight, soulful but crunchy arrangements are intriguing, so much so that one wonders when they will break out nationally. Judging from their latest recordings, the must be one terrific band to see live. - Daily Times

"Speak So Loud", by Element57, is the most promising of tracks on this compilation. Down-tuned guitars are effective in combination with the refrain of "We speak so loud / With no one listening." Formed in 1996 in Portland, Oregon, previously 4th Plane Jaiant was a semi-finalist in Billboard's "Best Unsigned Band" contest in 1999. Their potential is plausible, and I am curious to hear more. - Popmatters.com