From East Coast to West the decade that won't die keeps on throwing up variations on the theme. Over the past coupla years, it is American folk rock that has reared its head. Tht time between folk and soft rock when high harmony bands ruled the world and all you needed was an Afro and an falsetto.
From Fleet Foxes to Darlingside, you can't throw a brick without hitting one. At Mercury Lounge it was a duo from Boston, Tall Heights turn and in a fine set they mined their EP Rafters for songs of deadly earnest and disaster and if you didn't buy into their vision of deep emotional complexities it is because you haven't been paying attention to the cellist who seems to imbue every thought with a built in ache.
That's Paul Wright, a handsome plaidish bloke who joins his voice with guitarist Tim Harrington. I arrived for the set late but Tim's quip about "Thank's for waiting through the slow stuff" is well taken as the very next song is about old people. Tall Heights are good humored about their humorless. A typical song starts with "The furnace needs fixing" and things go down hill from there, but the boys enjoin their voices and there is a sweet rush to their very well crafted songs.
Their EP, Rafters, is a minor beauty filled with imminently lovely stuff built for co-eds with a crush, and they perform them with an intense thereness almost hippieish in its pained good nature. Towards the end everything comes together "To Be Young" which, if the vocal arrangement wasn't the wonder of the title track, moves lightly to a singer songwriterly denounement.
It is kinda funny listening to the bands solipsistic youthfulness knocking on the doors of time, it is so eternally collegiate they endear themselves.
Grade: B+