Darlenes Bend

Calamity Dance is a collection of songs that follow a sincere and earnest narrative through reflective disillusionment, rebellious claustrophobia, playful fatalism, and yearning confessions. It is defined by musical and philosophical integrity.

One beginning of Calamity Dance can be found in the relentless hooks and plunging grooves of lead guitarist, Neal Eles. He plays the story. It is silk in waves and glass shards all day. His lines are provocative and inviting. Sometimes they mock, and are always curious. They have their quirky charm like all good lead lines these days, but they burst out of powerful tonal command and technique. Both at times pressed to desperate expressiveness.

Three drummers are featured on “Calamity Dance”, and each share in their own individual ways. All strung together in the massive concrete box of TRC Studio.

Of the three drummers Russ Sternglass was first on the scene. His playing features a swing between frantic shuffling fills and bright, natural beats. It’s fast and organic. A beautiful and compelling relationship exists between his technical virtuosity as a prog influenced percussionary gymnast, and the basic punk folk aesthetic of Flowerstalks.

Dan Drohan came next. One of the first things to impact the ears from Drohan’s playing is his vision for timbre and tonality on the kit. This skill exists in harmony with his whole personality for the creative process. In the process of song construction he is constantly intense and instinctive. He delivers pulsing broken minimalism full of charisma. He is a true listener and it shows in his comprehension of form and imagination of how any song could be made better.

The final drummer to offer contributions was Davis Rowan where he helped workshop songs into their final versions. His sound is big and consistent. Rowan can sit transparent under the beat and toe-tap out the whole tune. However, he also can dive into bombastic obliteration. All of the above are present and accounted for in Calamity Dance.

One of the most important unifying elements of Calamity Dance is the bass work of Sam Cook-Stuntz. There is truly humble brilliance all throughout his playing. He is constantly surprising in his interaction with harmonic movements of the music. He barrels through and over rhythmic motif and seems to distract himself with his own melodic sub plots. Sam uses full range of the bass, and enjoys the advantages present in doing so. At points he thumps low, muffled and muddy, living as an abstraction in the rhythm. Still elsewhere he drifts around in his upper register. His approach can be sweet and thick and singing with the vocals, or a punching and tribal extension of the percussion.

The songs of Calamity Dance are songs for this time. They are songs for people who know that the idealism of the sixties has long since crashed into the narcissism of the 90's, and is now sinking debris into the anesthetized digital age of the 21st century. These are songs of wit and playfulness, but impatient towards triviality or novel quirk.