Moros Eros
The Fashion
Orlando, Fla. • February 18, 2007
Jen Cray
The little band from Georgia has the misfortune of being too young and too experimental for their core audience. The tour they’re on is their first big trek across the States as well as their first opportunity to reach an audience just beginning to hear their name in association with their new label home, Victory Records. The label, of course, used to be well known for being a hardcore hub but has adapted over the years to currently house such modern emo and metalcore bands as Aiden, Hawthorne Heights and Atreyu. Moros Eros sounds nothing like any of these bands, nor do they sound like the dancier, prettier bunch on the other side of the popularity fence (Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, etc.). They have more in common with At The Drive In or Bloc Party, yet they are out on tour opening for a young, pretty electro/emo dance pop boy named Young Love. Then again, Bloc Party toured briefly with Panic! so these odd pairings do happen.
When I got inside Backbooth, I felt like I was stepping into an episode of My So-Called Life ( and 30 Seconds to Mars wasn’t even on the bill!). Teenagers, trying their best to look unaffected and cool, lined the walls with their cups of water ( the bored bartenders were yelling “Bar’s open!”). When openers The Fashion took the stage and set up a television with Pulp Fiction playing, all I could think was, “These kids were just being born when this movie came out, and I saw it in the damn movie theater!” The band played 1980s-inspired New Wave and were very _fashion_ably dressed, but were they good? The kids loved ‘em. Me? I liked the fact that their drummer was a skinny, young girl who beat the shit out of that drum kit.
Though not as explosive as I had anticipated, Moros Eros still dominated the little corner stage for their 30 minutes of the spotlight. The crowd didn’t quite know what to make of them, but they politely watched, clapping in all the appropriately places. The skies didn’t part, magic did not occur, and it wasn’t a show that will forever be etched in my memory, but I still stand fast in believing that this band of barely legal-age kids have some brilliant music inside their heads just bursting to get out. Frontman Zach Tipton has a voice that can growl as well as it can go high into the rafters without losing pitch, and his lyrics are ambitious.
The band played some of the best tracks off of their debut release, I Saw the Devil Last Night and Now The Sun Shines Bright – “Today Is The Day” and “I Saw The Devil Last Night” were what I had come to hear, and they did not disappoint.
“I hope we lived up to the record,” Tipton said to me after the show was over.
And they did, but I know they can do better.
To see more photos of this show and others, go to [www.jencray.com](http://www.jencray.com/MorosEros.htm).
