Netherfriends - Calling You Out (ep)

The ethereal qualities on Calling You Out are reminiscent of psychedelic qualities of Animal Collective and The Flaming Lips. Shawn Rosenblatt is Netherfriends , a Chicago Post Punk outfit that are able to fuse the electronic elements with pop rock structures much in the same way as The Talking Heads and more recently Learning Music. Throw in a little Beatles and you have an interesting musical base for some honest lyrics that stare in the mirror of their writer.

"Friend With Lofts" states 'I know bands who don't give a fu%$ , well they dress like band but they don't play enough. " This is a tongue in cheek screed against a band that likes to be seen and not heard.

A musical bird house of sounds starts "Really?" and then gives way to percussive pulse that has world music overtones.

Oh-Hi-Oh is a dense track that upon further listens reveals new sounds in the periphery each time. There is a nice contrast of the seemingly crazy sounds and the melody

A David Byrne party track would be another name for "Nunya (beeswax)". The driving world beat percussive elements as well as the African inspired chants that makes this track refreshing.

"Mom Cop" is a song with dialectic lyrics, "I don't know what's worse, yeah your mom's a cop or your dad's a nurse, either way we'll turn out the same."

Shawn Rosenblatt is in complete control of the musical landscape on Calling You Out. He has quite a big picture vision of a complete sound that has varying influences. He blurs the line between pop and psychedelic while interjecting world rhythms. He adheres to the 'write what you know' theory and it serves him well as the lyrical content of these songs is well thought out.

I plan on seeing Netherfriends on Dec 21. at The Empty Bottle in Chicago. Shawn is always playing somewhere and probably tonight, so you might want to check him out at Netherfriends myspace, if only the drummer shows! (Inside joke from Shawn's blog).

Recently Netherfriends was featured live on the Daytrotter Sessions. (Daytrotter is an invaluable music resource that records indie bands in their studio and lets you download the result).

Netherfriends