The Overcast believes in music, passion and action. Interviews, reviews and features on unsigned bands and art-related social causes. http://www.theovercast.net http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/iamthedot-rarecreatures.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/iamthedot-rarecreatures.shtml Tue 29 Dec 2009 1:06 MST Zach Tipton of I Am The Dot, a self-proclaimed "apocalypse pop" solo-project, encourages listeners to play the Rare Creatures EP with headphones. Headphones make a song more personal; they are a conversation between the left and the right, in which the mind is the only entity that could possibly intervene. Headphones, in a way, are a perfect vulnerability. Tipton knowingly lays on the table three songs about rare circumstances, rare hurt, rare promise. (read more at TheOvercast.net) http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/youngcoyotes20090821.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/youngcoyotes20090821.shtml Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:52:58 PST "This is what happened when we couldn't be loud in Adam's apartment. His bass drum was a suitcase, we put towels over the snare drum, and I had my acoustic, and that's the kind of music that we had." (read more at TheOvercast.net) http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/afaultychromosome-asanexanorexicssixsicksexit.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/afaultychromosome-asanexanorexicssixsicksexit.shtml Mon 24 Aug 2009 1:06 MST If A Faulty Chromosome were a student at Standard American High School, Home of the Eagles/Mustangs/Tigers, he would have probably failed his Public Speaking class. He was impulsive with his thoughts and would jerk to whatever idea seemed to sound right at the time. He spent way too much time daydreaming in class. Not to mention, points off for continually failing to make eye contact. But, he was definitely the smartest, most interesting guy in the room. And whether the jocks and the cheerleaders knew it or not, at least he could be sure. (read more at TheOvercast.net) http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/quebecantique20090625.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/quebecantique20090625.shtml Mon, 3 Aug 2009 15:17:58 MST "Even if they don't completely know what it's about or understand it, I want them to go, 'I just like the way that song feels.'" (read more at TheOvercast.net) http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/quebecantique-theabbeytapes.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/quebecantique-theabbeytapes.shtml Sat, 1 Aug 2009 22:39:18 MST Quebec Antique's songs seem to be more felt than heard, stretching short and simple moments into the lengthy, suspended emotional uncertainty or bliss at which they're experienced. They are narratives set to breathing, explorations of the fleeting, common passages that give us life. (read more at TheOvercast.net) http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/localnatives20090629.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/localnatives20090629.shtml Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:26:00 MST "It's feelings of abandon and following a pursuit, like a passion, with everything, with all your time and efforts and forgoing the normal path of going to get a job behind a desk." (read more at TheOvercast.net) http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/youngcoyotes-basement.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/youngcoyotes-basement.shtml Mon, 6 Jul 2009 00:22:27 MST If home is where we rest our heads, raise our feet to the furniture, relish in the release from our day jobs and public lives, then what of a home's basement? Maybe it holds a bedroom or a game room--it is a subterranean retreat. Or does it slosh with the sounds of pipes, noisy with the clutter of hidden things the company will never see? Whether a secluded tuckaway or a mysterious dark, the basement is still that hidden depth unseen to the outside world. There, we stand in the foundation that ties house to earth, floor beneath floor, story sub story. This is the curious sound Young Coyotes capture in five songs on Basement. (read more at TheOvercast.net) http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/therest20090406.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/therest20090406.shtml Sun, 3 May 2009 00:22:27 PST "You're just not being distracted by the millions of things. There's no Internet, there's no television. It was just songwriting and idea brainstorming and putting us in this room with big giant ceilings with the sun coming in from the lake and you're looking out at this beautiful scene." http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/therest-everyoneallatonce.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/therest-everyoneallatonce.shtml Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:25 PST Somewhere in a forest cottage, in this quiet tuckaway beside a lake, seven sought silence as a stage to set their sounds, adding an atmosphere both earthy and otherworldly to The Rest's ornate, theatrical pop. Roaming far as mountains and near as nervous fear, the Rest takes you where they were. And you begin believe, one eneveloping hum or consuming whisper later, that it's exactly where you belong. http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/heymarseilles20090304.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/heymarseilles20090304.shtml Fri, 3 Apr 2009 00:00:25 PST I think we do try to bring back the sort of classical kind of feel to our songs while at the same time having songs that are accessible. http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/monkeyjacket-fourtwentythree.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/monkeyjacket-fourtwentythree.shtml Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:01:00 MDT Monkey Jacket have always been ones for experimentation, and if there's really a label that could describe all of their songs (or every part of one song, for that matter), it's "unpredictable." Playing out like some unorthodox concoction of switchblade rhythms, sinister synth and distortion, and a bass backbone like lightning, Four Twenty Three is obviously the product of surrealist mad scientist brilliance. http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/gunbunny-thewhitecity.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/gunbunny-thewhitecity.shtml Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:01:00 MDT Relying on the classic four-piece set-up, familiar song structures, and simple production, you might think you can come into Gunbunny's debut EP The White City having heard it all before. But it's this same bare simplicity that brings attention to the band's creative, mad scientist songwriting: twisting bass lines, smart-alecky rhythms, unhinged vocals, and some wonderfully warped understanding of how to put it all together. http://www.theovercast.net/action/criticalexposure.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/action/criticalexposure.shtml Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:01:00 MDT Critical Exposure combines journalism, art, and community organizing by arming students around the country with the cameras and training to capture "the best and worst" within their school systems. http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/heymarseilles-totravelsandtrunks.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/heymarseilles-totravelsandtrunks.shtml Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:01:00 MDT Hey Marseilles fittingly refers to their seven-person outfit as "folkestra," featuring a trumpet, accordion, viola, the occasional series of hand claps, and so on and so forth. Despite their bulky roster, their full-length debut To Travels and Trunks is a most graceful journal of passages far and hearts longing, letters written in cursive over long drives and sea rides. http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/theheyday20080826.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/theheyday20080826.shtml Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:01:00 MDT "I've always just kind of felt that music in general, any type of music, is more a human need than a hobby." (with Randy Ramirez) http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/manplus-thehungariansuicidesongbook.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/manplus-thehungariansuicidesongbook.shtml Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:01:00 MDT So far this year, I've noticed two recurring themes in the albums reviewed on this site: 1) A sort of sonic irony, in which the band's sound plays traitor to the lyrics' spoken emotions, and 2) Gender ambiguity. The Hungarian Suicide Songbook, the third release by Seattle's Man Plus, is just continuing those trends. http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/pic-elnovahustle.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/pic-elnovahustle.shtml Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:01:00 MDT P.I.C. kicks up their sound with a Latin sense of style set to piano and bass you'd tip your hat to, and they rip it up with bold horn swank. They press together as many flavors as you'd find in NYC, the city they call home, and eventually end up with something sly, something retro, something with serious groove. http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/mattandisom20080531.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/interviews/mattandisom20080531.shtml Mon, 2 Jun 2008 00:01:00 MDT "It's a part of you and it's what you're thinking. It's why people write books. Art is such a different language of describing who you are." http://www.theovercast.net/action/yellowbirdproject.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/action/yellowbirdproject.shtml Wed, 28 May 2008 00:01:00 MDT Yellow Bird Project takes sweet indie bands (for PR value), has them design stylish t-shirts (for hipster value) and sells them to raise money for various charities (for makes-you-feel-all-good-inside value). http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/cloverleaf-spectrum.shtml http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/cloverleaf-spectrum.shtml Fri, 23 May 2008 00:01:00 MDT Cloverleaf experimented like an adolescent with hairstyles on their first album, juking between acoustic, piano pop and some sort of avant-garde poetry recitation. On this EP, the band finally finds its voice without cracking.