Beaten Awake
Thunder$troke
Fat Possum Records LLC
You have to give a few points to a band with a one-eyed flying outhouse on the cover of its album. Beaten Awake makes a straight ahead rock and roll sound that sops up all the indie pop tropes of the last decade, but doesn’t fall in love with any of them. There are rich, melodic chords on “Thunder$troke,” a shoe gazer drone on “Gyro Quake,” and a drowning man hollering on “Halo V.” There’s even a song with no title, and track eight sounds like a demo or live bootleg.
There’s precious little information on the band at the official website, but hints on the sleeve suggest four white males. You’ll hear drums, guitars, maybe a bass, and certainly keyboards and a vocalist on this project, and that’s typical for a modern quartet. I can’t say these guys will change the world, but they’re on a good start with this varied and melodic collection of songs. They don’t scream in your face or hide under a serotonin imbalance, but just focus on their song writing.
Fat Possum Records: http://www.fatpossum.com
