Our Favorite WRITER Comes to Town

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 30, 2012 8:20PM

Photo by E. Lee Smith

When we stumbled across WRITER a few years ago the band was a four piece from San Diego playing anthemic Americana. We picked up their EP but the band never really played outside the West Coast, and they didn't release a bunch of material, so we assumed they had gone dormant. Recently they blew the doors off that assumption to reveal a newly lean two-piece version of the group, now stationed out of Brooklyn. They just released their first proper full-length, Brotherface, and while there are still shreds of their earlir Americana leanings, they've been overtaken by drums run into the red, guitars that alternately snaked through first like clean, shiny serpents and then butted up against competing lines formed out of walls of distortion holding forth melody as a hostage.

Clocking in at just about twenty-eight minutes, the ten songs on Brotherface are lean yet powerful, and adventurous yet memorably catchy. In particular the drums and guitar do a memorable job of playing off each other as lead instruments in such a way that you can't imagine one without the other. So it's not surprising to discover that WRITER is fueled by musicians with a blood tie, the brothers James and Andy Ralph. The two work off each other so instinctively and beautifully, even at the most brutal moments in their songs, that one can easily fall into a trance under the influence of their compositions.

The band is actually touring behind the new album and come to Chicago December 1 to open for Os Mutantes at Lincoln Hall. This is the first time we're aware of them playing the Midwest since we fell for them years ago, so we strongly recommend you don't miss this show.