Another Form of Relief

It’s not often that I get hold of entirely unknown music that manages to really grab me straight away. I was a tad skeptical when first listening to Nathan Asher and The Infantry. When you start listening to a band that the press blurb compares to Bright Eyes, Bruce Springsteen and The Counting Crows, it seems pretty much impossible for the music to be anything other than a letdown. This was a feeling that disappeared within the first few minutes of the first song I listened to.

‘Turn Up The Faders’ is hands down one of the best songs that I have heard this year. It also confirmed exactly what the comparisons had promised: somehow this young, unsigned band had a sound that evokes both Bright Eyes and Springsteen. Asher’s vocals are very similiar to Oberst’s, partly shaking yet also full of power. He drives through the song with such urgency that you’d think that lives depended on it. This is supported ably by some excellent instrumentation, including a fantastic piano breakdown toward the end of the song that could have come straight off of ‘Born To Run’.

MP3 Nathan Asher and The Infantry - Turn Up The Faders (expired)
MP3 Nathan Asher and The Infantry - Sex Without Love / A War (expired)
MP3 Nathan Asher and The Infantry - Storms (expired)

The other two songs are also very good, and I’d probably be raving about them in their own right if they were by any other band, but next to ‘Turn Up The Faders’, they struggle for recognition. All three of these songs are taken from the bands 2005 album, ‘Sex Without Love’. You can pick up the album from CDBaby.

It seems amazing to me that a band like this aren’t actually signed to a label and are having to put out their own records, but hopefully with the critical buzz that is circulating ‘Sex Without Love’, things will soon change. You can get more information on Nathan Asher and The Infantry on their website as well as their Myspace.

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