If the songs smuggled over to me from HOORAY FOR EARTH’s forthcoming EP Cellphone are any indication, the band won’t be runners-up (as they were in this year’s Phoenix/FNX Best Music Poll) for long. Each track bristles with energy and the sort of gimmick-free confidence you don’t see much of these days. Never samy, always ambitious — it’s a matter of time before the nation at large gets over the band name and digs in. On February 29, Hooray for Earth ring in the leap year with the release of Cellphone (on Cambridge’s own Dopamine Records) at the Middle East downstairs, along with ZAMBRI and AGE RINGS.
Oh, and speaking of Age Rings: they’ll be using that same date to release a digital-only single that the Phoenix’s own Will Spitz characterizes as a teaser for their “forthcoming-better-than-the-White-Album double album,” the viscously titled Black Honey, which they recorded with Jack Younger at his Basement 247 studios in Allston. Early signs indicate some endearing pop songs with interest-piquing titles à la “Vanessa’s Neck.”
Brooding and unstoppable, the vets of BLACK HELICOPTER have once again been hard at work recording a set of new songs at their Analog Divide studio for a forthcoming full-length on Ecstatic Peace. Whereas their past records were held together by the mortar of some predetermined concept, bassist Zack Lazar asserts that they have “run out of ideas for concepts” and are now content to release an unbound pile of further ear-rending awesomeness, “shooting for March.” In addition, the band will be included in a forthcoming 10-record box set of seven-inch singles from Ecstatic Peace (which will also feature MV+EE and Thurston Moore), and they’ll enjoy a jaunt to SxSW to play a label showcase and, if they’re lucky, have their faces destroyed at the aforementioned Neptune show.
Over the past year, KETMAN have taken a knack for aggressive innovation, an odd fascination with Esperanto, a love of Czeslaw Milosz, and a staunch refusal to suck, and forged them all into what could be Boston’s most exciting power trio. At times, the songs on their forthcoming homonymous full-length evince the meticulous roar of DC bands like Fugazi or maybe even Kerosene 454; elsewhere, Ketman unleashes the succinct ferocity of West Coasters like the Minutemen and No Knife. On January 10 at Great Scott, they play with PET GENIUS, CODETTA, and the phenomenal (and recently reunited) DISAPPEARER. The album won’t be out till at least April, but if you’re looking for an album to look forward to, this is it.
