I’ve always had an appreciation for unknown (obscure) bands, especially when I know people in them.
When I went to college I deleted everyone on Facebook from my former life (aka everyone I knew in high school), but for some reason I kept this one dude. Maybe it was because he was super cute and I always had a crush on him. Or maybe I knew one day he’d make it big in one of the bands he played in. (Or maybe I still feel guilty for burning him with a cigarette — yes in my former life I was a smoker– even though he said he wasn’t mad about it. A sign of a superior human.)
I’ve been following Rick Spataro’s musical endeavors for a while (Florist, Slender Shoulders), but his newest project The Firs put out an exceptionally fantastic first album. And by “put out” I mean, posted on Bandcamp. The album Smoke Thin is shoe-gazey, and slightly poppy on some tracks (” There is Nothing at All and Fear is Just Put to Waste”) with male Cat Power-esque vocals. It’s almost like an underwater Indie dream. The single (“or whatever that means,” says Rick) is a song called “A Fight” is a song about an internal struggle (“what can I say / I was in a fight inside”) that causes an external struggle with a special someone (“we are only talking because you know we’re both depressed”). The entire album captures what I assume the post-collegiate sadness feels like. It’s honest, raw and some of it’s kinda cute. I highly recommend giving it a listen on a mellow night while drinking wine.
Click the cover art to listen to Smoke Thin on Bandcamp.
-Raina K. Puels ’16