By Ryan Ray
Published on January 27, 2010 at 1:41am
The Sour Notes are an Austin band who have arguably released more material in the last couple of years than any other local band. What makes the large discography for such a new band (3 LPs and a 7″ to be exact) even more impressive is that each release was put out on the band’s dime. Anyone who has been involved with a band currently shopping a label knows how hard releasing material on your own can be. Don’t tell that to leading man Jared Boulanger. He Originally started The Sour Notes in Houston, TX as a moniker for what was essentially a solo project. Shortly after his debut in 2008, Boulanger began bringing some friends on board to a form a new band that could tour and play live shows together locally and nationally. 2010 has seen the band release a new LP It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty with a follow up already planned for later this year. Now, recently returning from another east coast tour, the band has a welcome home show planned for Thursday night at Mohawk. The up and coming locals will be playing along with Zest of Yore and The Demigs.
By Laurie Gallardo
Published on January 27, 2010 at 1:41am
It’s a great triple bill of local peeps this Thursday at the Mohawk, each throwing down their own blend of pop styles – power, indie, psychedelic, electronic…you get the picture. Austin band Zest of Yore runs in the catchy, power-hook vein with a Guided By Voices/Robyn Hitchcock vibe; Denton and Dallas/Fort Worth music scenesters The Demigs move more into the rock side of pop; and Austin quartet The Sour Notes (featuring singer-songwriter Elaine Greer) tosses some dance rhythms into the pop mix.
This is all good, and all good for you. Catch these bands Thursday night on the indoor stage at the Mohawk, 912 Red River. Get there around 9:30 or 10-ish in the PM. Check it all out.
By Austin Powell
Published on January 22, 2010 at 1:41am
In bowling terms, the Sour Notes just notched a turkey: three significant, successive releases in just over a year. Latest LP It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty rules the roost – dense, sincere indie pop for the Garden State generation. “I’m not afraid to say that this album will be the best record I’ll ever put out,” admits singer-songwriter Jared Boulanger. “That’s kind of disheartening to say, but we’ve gotten progressively louder and thicker in the sound and faster paced. It’s like everything that we tried to do previously came together on this album.” Originally envisioned as a solo vehicle, the Sour Notes has ripened quickly since Boulanger moved to Austin from Houston in 2008, coinciding with the release of the band’s debut EP, The Meat of the Fruit. The quartet just finished a two-week East Coast tour that was filmed for a documentary, and a third full-length is already in the can, though Boulanger plans to hold off on its release for a while in hopes of gaining some more national attention. “I like to think that I’m writing little pop song scores to movies,” relates Boulanger, who shares a house with multi-instrumentalist Chris Page. “Most of the songs are themed after specific movies in the Criterion Collection. I get totally wrapped up in the feeling of what I’m watching and let that dictate the music.” The Sour Notes light up Mohawk on Thursday, Jan. 28, with contemporaries the Demigs and Zest of Yore.
By Austin Powell
Published on January 15, 2010 at 1:41am
Songwriter Jared Boulanger must keep Brill Building hours. Last year, the Sour Notes issued its engaging full-length debut, Received in Bitterness, chased with a 7-inch single. Sophomore LP It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty marks the local quartet’s sharpest and most cohesive work to date. Opener “Beyond Recognition” splits the difference between the Postal Service and Say Hi, programmed beats and bassist Elaine Greer’s sweet harmony building toward Boulanger’s conclusive refrain: “It’s all right, I don’t mind.” In fact, most of the album sticks to the Barsuk variety of indie rock: soft melodies with a vulnerable streak set to a revolving and airtight pop backdrop, from vindictive guitar rave-up “Do-ers & Say-ers” and synth-cushion “One Word Emotions” to the beautifully melancholic “A Cute Little Ruin.” Just over 30 minutes, It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty is teasingly brief, but thankfully that’s an issue the Sour Notes can remedy in no time flat.
By Doug Freeman
Published on January 14, 2010 at 1:41am
For a band as prolific as the Sour Notes (an EP, 7-inch, and now two full-lengths since 2008), the quartet has not only proven remarkably excellent in their quality of output, but also continue to impressively push themselves in new directions. Each release, beginning with the 2008 EP The Meat of the Fruit, has taken their instinctive pop-rock pulse and expanded their sound in arrangements and sensibilities. To some extent, It’s Not Gonna to Be Pretty is an appropriate title for the quartet’s sophomore LP – not because it’s not an excellent album, but rather because compared to their earlier pop leanings, the Sour Notes here seem to consciously be moving at times into more rock textures, unafraid to break up the melodies with more jagged edges. It’s the album’s balance of the quartet’s new harder inclinations with those more familiar pop elements that gives it a fully formed and rewardingly diverse feel, however.
It’s Not Going to Be Pretty starts unassumingly enough with the soft syncopation of “Beyond Recognition.” If frontman Jared Boulanger hearkened Transatlanticism-era Death Cab for Cutie in his earlier efforts, “Beyond Recognition” shades more of Ben Gibbard’s work with the Postal Service, with a touch of a more pop-polished Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. But it is the newly inducted vocal contributions of Elaine Greer that add the most to the song, and the Sour Notes’ current sound. She balances Boulanger’s introspective sincerity by at once reflecting and countering his sentiments.
“Do-ers & Say-ers” immediately breaks the spell of the opener, though, rippling electric guitar as Boulanger ups his vocals to a pop-punk shout and the song cuts a bitter, condemning tone: “You ought to fault who couldn’t tell her that she’s a whore, All by herself now and it’s not her fault.” These two sides of the Sour Notes – the calm desperation of “Beyond Recognition” (and “One Word Emotions”) and the rankled charge of “Do-ers & Say-ers” at times come together excellently, as they did on “Never Mix Never Worry” from their recent 7”. On It’s Not Going to Pretty, “One Fell Swoop” may be the best mix, pummeling guitars opening to Boulanger’s call of “I’ll be the nocturne hymn you’ll dream upon, A bitter lover in dull moments.” The song never careens out of control, but teeters on the edge to be pulled back as it mirrors the apparent emotional conflict roiling through Boulanger’s mind.
Unfortunately, this force doesn’t reemerge again as engagingly on the rest of the album, but the Sour Notes have plenty of other elements to show off throughout. “It’s the Hair That Makes the Dress Chic!” is an unexpected three minute long instrumental piece with a slow and ominous build, and “Familiar Presence” returns to their pitch perfect pop, infectious in spite of the horrible Eighties-style synth line buried in the back of the song. But “Time Will Tell” jumps from the speakers with minimal and straight-ahead licks that wander midsong into shifting distortion and then a dreamlike psych-pop lull.
The penultimate “A Cute Little Ruin” likewise slides from its mold of gently sincere pop balladry into a minute-long gossamer blur lifted by Greer’s looped “ahhs,” and “The Distant Knell” closes on such an achingly disarmingly tone, the struggle that Boulanger seems to relate in the lyrics is blindsidingly bleak. While the song seems to be a self-implored restraint to giving up, perhaps even suicide, it’s beautifully wrought.
It’s Not Going To Be Pretty is certainly the Sour Notes’ best effort to date, showcasing their diversity as they continue to adjust the musical reach to adequately match Boulanger’s poignant pull, both as songwriter and vocalist. Because Boulanger lays everything so emotionally bare in his songs, it’s a difficult proposition to simultaneously allow his sincerity to realize its impact and keep the songs from drifting into a too emotionally complex and heavy state. The band continues to show a number of different stylistic approaches to accomplish this, and though they still may not have quite found that perfect balance, there is no doubt that with the progress they continue to display that they will soon.
