Even local bands can have a storied past full of hard work and rock star shenanigans.
In the four years that Unit 7 Drain has been together, it has had a work output greater than most well-paid pop stars and probably much better tales.
The band recoded and released a self-titled EP in 2001, the excellent LP Red Halo in 2002 and 2003's The Suicide Couple. Unit 7 Drain appeared on an split eight track with Day of the Automoton and a B-side split with the now defunct and missed Oh, Ranger!.
The band's new album Devices consists of 11 introspective, dramatic and exceptional songs. Throw in live performances with smashed guitars almost once a week, and Unit 7 Drain wins the award for hardest working band in the world. And members did it all on their own while working day jobs.
The five piece's influences and sound range from The Cure and The Smiths all the way to Weezer and even a little Nirvana and Skinny Puppy. Harry Brown is the principle songwriter, vocalist and guitarist. Chris Newman plays drums and is a kitchen manager and cook. Kevin Elder plays bass and sings and is one of Albuquerque's favorite young actors. Bobby Tucker is on synthesizer and one hell of a dancer, and Tony Wissing rounds out the lineup on guitar and is also a cook.
"We put the bass cabinet face down in a bathtub and hung a mic from the showerhead," Brown said. "I don't know what it is about that bathtub bass, but damn! We put the keyboard amp inside the refrigerator and put the mic in the dairy nook."ˇ
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Whether out of necessity or friendship, it is a tight group. Newman lived in Brown's broken hearse for a summer. A few of the members lived in the woods for while after Brown's mom burnt down the trailer they were renting from her. They have been known to throw rock shows in airplane hangers in the middle of nowhere. It hasn't always been that easy though, they used to practice in a 7-by-7 tin shed and even got some of their original equipment in a classic grab-and-go scene with Wissing waiting with the engine running, in a wood-paneled 1981 Mercury Zephyr wagon.
Devices is loaded with surrealistic songs that constantly fly between being music of inspiration to pure pop. It gets better and better with every listen.
