Total Navajo

The stand out track is Hand Jive by Total Navajo. This Californian trio’s debut EP was released late last year. It showcased their talent of writing headbreakers as well as stompers. Hand Jive is the latter. The track is constructed around a blues riff, with the band either playing in or around its pattern. While Total Navajo aren’t reinventing the wheel, they have created a catchy and memorable track. At times it reminds me of a heavier and dirtier Gomez combined with the Dead Weather at their most brash and visceral. - thisyearinmusic

A large part of this week has revolved around how the crew compliment of the good ship Killing Moon are very much into to varying facets of the ostensible alternative genre. For example, we think it’s perfectly acceptable to listen to Slipknot in a working environment. Ben basically wants to listen to War On Drugs all the time, although he will read that statement at some point and have a go at us claiming it is simply not true. We have video footage of Ross air drumming to Rage Against The Machine in one of the booth’s at King’s Head, and of course while we are aware that he is an unashamed fan of the funk-punkers, we will not hesitate at all to whack that fucker online should Ross ever betray us. So when it comes to Track Of The Day duties, which we reserve the right to veto all other opinions therein on the subject matter on any given post because it is our fucking blog and we will do whatever we bloody well please with it, you can imagine with a company populated with such staunch musical elitists (what’s the point of working in music if you aren’t?) that it is very rare for us to agree unanimously on, well, anything really. So, well done Total Navajo. We all like you. All three of us. You win, in the smallest possible way. So, what are you all about? Well, you’re from Los Angeles. There appear to be three of you (big up to the dude in the middle for being the strongest-looking guy we’ve ever seen). You have a five-track EP titled Eyelids up on bandcamp at the moment, which is nice. You are also the first band to be subjected to a triple-Track Of The Day, and that is mainly because collectively we cannot decide which of your tracks out of the five are our favourite. In-between those three tracks, we think that you sound like something between Foo Fighters, Queens Of The Stone Age, John Martyn, Soundgarden, Black Keys and White Denim. All of whom are really really really good. So well done. No, seriously. - Killing Moon

Total Navajo are a two piece from Los Angeles who flex quite a bit of diversity on their debut EP, Eylids. For two musicians they’re able to paint a complicated picture rather quickly, and this is most evident on their title track, which begins with a walking banjo that ascends with the help of drummer and guitarist Mitchell Rowland’s vocals, which leave just a hint of Elliot Smith’s fingerprints. However, songs such as “Voice of Eyes” and “Hand Jive” show their roots lie within traditional rock parameters, and it’s this diversity that’s made their debut EP such a grower with me.

If in the LA area you can catch Total Navajo at Lexington Bar (downtown) on December 3rd. - Visions of the Unexcused

Judging from the number of bilious comments it inspired, my most controversial review was a 417-word shrug about Columbus blues-rock power trio Mount Carmel in 2009. My indifference was based on my sense that they were all simmer and no sizzle, a living museum exhibit suffering from insufficient wattage. Their love for their genre of choice was apparent, as was their painstaking mastery of it. Their shows just felt more like lava cooling than volcanoes erupting, taxiing the runway forevermore without lifting off.

I’ve since come around on Mount Carmel; the group’s 2011 performance at Nelsonville Music Festival was an F-22 exploding from out the flames of Mt. Vesuvius. As for psych-blues at large? If you’re going to dig into those grooves, please come out with something colorful.

Enter Total Navajo, another power trio channeling Cream in campus-area clubs. I caught them Saturday at Rumba Café, where they were opening for longstanding Cincinnati roots rockers Buffalo Killers.

Guitarist Mitchell Rowland and bassist Jon Giacalone hail from Lionel the Jailbird, a Jefferson Airplane-ish combo that just went on hiatus. Jason Winner also drums in Indigo Wild, a derivative indie band (fetishes: Death Cab, Arcade Fire) that nonetheless released one eminently solid single and knows how to translate studio savvy to the stage.

Together, they’re approaching fuzzed-out classic rock with vigor and flair. Total Navajo’s members are not as preternaturally in sync as their forebears in Mount Carmel, but they make up for it with enthusiasm and lovely left turns.

Rambunctious soloing gave way to seventh-chord inflections that were funky without being corny. Later: ominous detuned “Iron Man” guitar groans, rumpled chord progressions, slide guitar capable of bending sound and mind. “Girl From Nowhere” was a cousin to The Beatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing,” its high-pitched Egyptian melody bleeding into downward-spiraling open arpeggios. There were noise freakouts. With a single clanging chord, the bottom fell out entirely (by design) into a cymbal rush K-hole.

This was not a perfect show, and Total Navajo are by no means a perfect band. Rowland’s Ozzy-inspired bark, in particular, could use some more melodic awareness and some extra wind behind it. But they breathed life (and fire) into those old, dead pentatonic riffs of yesteryear. - Columbus Alive