by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
Members of Angeles Drake know exactly what they are doing.
They layer clear and obscure timbres like a skilled painter applying paint in such a way as to break the viewers' hearts and deliver them to revelation.
Their debut album, I Wish You Would Come Home Already, is a result of three years' worth of hard work and practice.
"Practicing all the time, you never get to see anybody," guitarist Marc Herron said. "It's definitely hard to maintain normal relationships with friends or girlfriends. I wouldn't say it's a sacrifice because it's definitely a joy playing music with everybody and having that be your life, but it comes at a cost."
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This is the music that seeps through the cracks in the walls of one's skull - a dreamscape soundtrack of relationships that come and go. Listeners will find themselves belting out harmonies along with the songs before realizing it.
Angeles Drake practices in a warehouse near a halfway house in Longbeach, Calif.
"We get a lot of weird elements around here," Herron said. "Our warehouse is sandwiched between a steel shop and place where they strip cars out."
The band consists of a vocalist, guitarist, drummer and a piano-player. Using a piano in place of a bass guitar has allowed for elements impossible to achieve with only a bass. It adds a hauntingly beautiful ambiance to the band's anthems.
"We had a bass player before, but then we dropped him and ended up going for this different route," Herron said. "Matt, the pianist, sort of took on the role of the bass player by using the low end of an organ. It kind of differentiates us from the rest of the bands which, especially in L.A., is a very important thing to do."
The band has been compared to Jeff Buckley, Radiohead and Coldplay. Herron said any band compared to such monumental figures has a lot to live up to but should not get pretentious.
The opening and closing tracks are thick. They are composed with all of the band's energy and passion. The eight tracks in between show this passion broken down, seeming less dense. They pick out a few singular ideas and sew them together, so all the songs are important to the whole and work together to make a full body. The album is listenable all the way through.
Lead singer Jonathan Haskell said the album is about relationships.
"The last song and the first song form a cycle, as far as a relationship," he said. "It starts and finishes until hopefully the cycle is complete and you find someone you can be with."
I Wish You Would Come Home
Already
Angeles Drake
Grade: A
March 18
The Launchpad,
618 Central Ave.
$5
