The Heroic Enthusiasts

We tend to think of math as an inflexible code for nature's machinations, a tool by which we try to make sense of the endless churn of the fractions, angles, percentages and random variables endlessly colliding and intertwining all around us. To Heroic Enthusiasts co-founders James Tabbi and Tom Ferrara, however, math is poetry. It's been hundreds of years since Western culture surgically excised the romance from science. As a result, we rarely give more than a passing thought to the gravitational equation that keeps us pinned to the surface of a curved rock hurling through space at 67,000 mph while rotating in an elliptical orbit we've divided into increments of 60 by 60 by 24 by 365.

But back in the 16th-century, the Catholic friar and astronomer-philosopher Giordano Bruno gazed at the stars through eyes set ablaze with rapture -- the eyes of an artist in complete thrall to a muse. Bruno paid the ultimate price for his passion, eventually getting put to death by the church for his then-heretical suggestions about the workings of the universe. So it wasn't lightly that Tabbi and Ferrara chose to name their band after his epic work Gli Eroici Furori -- literally "On the Heroic Passion" but commonly known as "The Heroic Enthusiasts."

Both math majors and music lovers of Sicilian descent, Ferrara and Tabbi understand that form derives its beauty from a dance between precision and an intangible quality that can't be quantified. Yes, they write songs that stick in your memory and make you want to sing them out loud. But they also add discreet touches of sophistication for people who need more out of their pop music. For example, they'll do things like leave a note out of a chord so that your ear strains to hear it and then resolve (or add tension to) the song or phrase by adding the note they've been implying all along.

When Tabbi and Ferrara met in 1990, they fell into an instant rapport, even joking that they're really the same spirit separated into two different people. Theirs is the definition of a complementary, simpatico, and symbiotic musical relationship. It shows in the way their guitar lines weave together and in the way each one adds the missing piece that elevates the other's idea to something far more than it could ever have been on its own.

On their new EP Memory Wheel, The Heroic Enthusiasts use math as a language to illustrate love. Much as they did for Bruno, numbers for this band function as a window into matters of the heart. Math and emotion may not seem related, but when you listen to this music, you'll see why the connection makes sense. Or maybe you'll just hum or dance along instead. And that's okay too. These guys wouldn't have it any other way.