Guv

I have to admit that I am a sucker for songs that seems bigger than life. This song by unsigned band Guv sounds big. Brings to mind something that may have been a demo for Radiohead's OK computer. The sound is bare bones but complex. Different movements and parts all work in harmony with one another to create a nice picture of a young and developing band that has some obvious song writing chops and some great vocals (think less whinny Thom Yorke). Being that it is a demo I shouldn't say that I don't really like the lead guitar tone (but it isn't my favorite). Get this now and when their album comes out this summer purchase it and support a great band.

--Bo - Lead Singer Disorder, http://leadsingerdisorder.blogspot.com

The music is loud, thick with guitars and rich sound textures, often reminiscent of Radiohead, complete with Thom Yorke-like singing by vocalist Adam Cissell. But from the start, there's a twist.

The drums are fast-paced, impertinent, punkish. Cissell's guitar playing takes jangly, distinctly American little twists. And the looks are a far cry from the black-clad, earnest British: Cissell has a schitzu dog T-shirt and stars-and-stripes bandanna; bassist Jeff Zupka has a blue polyester polo with a big Nasa sticker and a retro tie.

Guv are an oddball crew - but you could've known that by looking at their Web site, which proclaims right at the top: "We're kinda awesome..." Or by talking for a minute to drummer Matt Atwood, a master of the tall tale.

Yet it's clear that deep down, these are serious musicians. It's evident from the way the songs are crafted, the way they layer the sounds - Cissell's crisp guitar over Bryan Ploutz's distortion and Zupka's sparse, note-by-note bass lines; Atwood's sometimes subtle, sometimes frenzied drumming; the way the vocals play into the orchestration.

The first crop of Guv songs, which they released in last year's debut CD, Papercut, are all Cissell's work; he'd written them by himself, and he needed a band to play them. All four work for the U.S. Navy - they're all engineers - and Ploutz, who had started playing guitar with Cissell, introduced them to one another.

After a night of heavy drinking in Providence, they ended up at the Star Bar in Newport.

"We started free-styling right there," Zupka said. Atwood did his beat-box thing. They improvised and went crazy. It was perfect.

After putting out Papercut, they began writing together. "We have a very communist band; Anytime anyone has an idea, they throw it out there," said Zupka. They start with a simple melody, "then we texturize it," said Atwood. Sometimes they have a concept for the lyrics, like the song about cannibalism they're writing now. Other times, Cissell said, he starts making vowel sounds to go with the instruments, and builds words on them.

The result is sophisticated, multi-layered music that builds up and takes unexpected twists and fills the room till it feels, at some points, like they've hit every frequency in the sound spectrum. The songs tend to be long; a recent set clocked in at 40 minutes with only six songs, culminating in the epic, almost orchestral "It's Never Coming Back" a track from the second CD they're working on; you can download it at their Web site.

The British shoegazer influence shows up in "Firestorm," another new track, which starts out with subtle guitars and mournful vocals before turning into a trip-hop extravaganza, enhanced by a heavy dose of beat-box. "Trying Hard," also new, is much louder, built on insistent, fast paced drumming, with some counrtyish riffs and an ending that would fit perfectly in a Tarantino soundtrack.

Even the old songs, though, keep getting reworked. The album version of "Two Rocks In the Garden," is a lean, sad pop song with Cissell's vocals over relatively lean guitars and drums. But live the other night, it started with a vocal harmony over the lightest instrumentation, highlighting the Beatles-ey tune, then built into a much richer sound.

Because the music is often so loud, it's easy to miss many of the lyrics, but a close listen will reveal a mix of sad and poetic, and silly-humorous ("I feel something's wrong, like a coyote being chased by a road-runner"), just in case you took them too seriously.

It's the same contrast you see on stage: epic music played by a guy in a schitzu T-shirt.

"We like to keep the audience uncomfortable," Zupka said. "Keep them on their feet."
- Motif - Aug 17-Sept 6, 2005 - Marion Davis