[music]
Getting it right No Mulligans fits into Missoula’s rap scene No Mulligans, the first tape by Missoula hip-hop trio The Orators, is pleasingly rough. Part of that is likely due to bona fide amateurishness. Many of the rhymes struggle to fit in the bars that contain them, and the beats often have the airless quality of exports from Fruity Loops. Yet the group’s sound is also glum and evocative in a way that makes the most of the bare production, creating a desolate atmosphere that contrasts starkly with the contemporary fashion for Big Rap. The Orators sound real, both honest and earnest. It makes their project immediately sympathetic.
Almost all of the vocal tracks are doubled, with the second lagging a little behind, as if The Orators were absently rapping along with their own album. The effect fits well with the mildly ironic tone of No Mulligans, which handles the problem of being white rappers from Montana with only a modicum of comic detachment. Not a stunt and not misplaced self-aggrandizement either, the album is a modest and enjoyable contribution to local music. Missoula can have a rap scene, and it doesn’t have to be a joke. It only needs more artists like The Orators to do more projects like this one. (Dan Brooks)
Wild Moth Remember the first bands you saw during your reckless formative years? Some local dudes and/or lady dudes shredding for the hell of it, happy just to be on a stage in the back of a billiard hall or in shattered-glass parking lots? I bet kids in San Francisco will look back on Wild Moth with the same fondness I have for those late-night shows. But, while Wild Moth sounds like adolescence, the Bay Area trio is showing signs of changing styles. Between the band’s eponymous debut EP from last year and its first single from the forthcoming full-length, Over, Again (due
out Sept. 17), the difference is clear. The EP’s first few tracks are a spacey and mellow variety of melodic punk, while the new song, “Souvenir (No Future),” is grinding and relentless with a hint of thrash. The vocals on the latter are heavy, if not atonal at times, which works well with the satisfying clashing of instrumentals. Though the band’s direction seems to have changed, its penchant for evoking devil-may-care nights has not. (Brooks Johnson) Wild Moth plays the ZACC, 235 N. First St., Sun., Aug. 4, at 7:30 PM with Avair, Ditch Tiger, Boys, The All-Hail, Buddy Jackson and Posture. $5.
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Underhill Rose, Something Real Folk and bluegrass are best when politically and emotionally charged and lyrically poignant, or so much fun all you want to do is get in your car and drive with the windows down, screaming every song at the top of your lungs. Something Real, the second album from Asheville, N.C.’s Underhill Rose, almost hits both marks, but not quite. “They Got My Back” has a nice hometown sentiment, but the cutesy attempt at slang is a bit misplaced. “Unused to You” is reminiscent of The Civil Wars’ “Poison and Wine” but lacks the gut-punch poetry. The predictability keeps it from ever attaining depth. Eleanor Underhill has a killer voice. It’s rich and potentially far-reaching, and the combination with Molly
Rose’s sweet lilt and the twangy vocals of University of Montana graduate Salley Williamson sounds as solid as you’d expect from a band that’s been playing together since 2009. The musicianship is convincing, whether they’re attempting old country in “Little House,” blues in “I Wanna Love You” or folk in “Bare Little Rooms.” The last song on the album, the plucky “End of 27,” is full of clever lyrics rolled together with a delicious little trumpet. Ultimately, each song is almost fulfilling. “Drive Me to Drinking,” the grittiest song on the album, is the closest the band actually gets to feeling like something real. (Gaaby Patterson) Underhill Rose plays Monk’s Bar Fri., Aug. 2, at 9 PM. Free.
Ditch Tiger “III,” the pre-released track from Ditch Tiger’s forthcoming album Old Growth, begins with a quiet arpeggio of math rock guitar. It is a reminder that the song is constructed and not simply a burst of noise, as post-hardcore often seems to be. “III” is a lumbering, head-nodding beast. It crashes without losing its forward momentum, thereby avoiding what is often the defining problem of the genre. Post-hardcore too often means post-structure, postideas and post-enjoyment. Ditch Tiger manages to walk the line between noisy and noise, however, and the band’s songs preserve the robust frustration of hardcore without taking it out on the listener. Some of the tracks on the ear-
lier demo succumb to the temptation to simply ride the cymbals and jerk the guitar, but for the most part Ditch Tiger’s arrangements display the phrasal coordination that distinguishes the enthusiastic from the merely messy. It sounds like it’s trying something, in other words, within a genre that can ask for too little in the way of craft or vision. Ditch Tiger stands apart from the legion of post-hardcore bands that charge without knowing where they’re going. This band is just as loud, but thankfully it is a little more smart. (Dan Brooks) Ditch Tiger plays the ZACC Sun., Aug. 4, at 7:30 PM, with Avair, Wild Moth, Boys, The All-Hail, Buddy Jackson and Posture. $5.
missoulanews.com • August 1–August 8, 2013 [21]