CD release party? Cool. Dual CD release party? Even cooler. Dual CD release party with free food to help you nurse your lingering early Saturday afternoon hangover? Mark your calendar.
In what's becoming a Twin Cities tradition, STNNNG and Signal To Trust have booked their 4th Annual Lunch Show at the 7th St. Entry on Saturday, November 18, 2006. The lunch shows of past years have been fun, but this year's promises to be extra special.
Partly inspired by Shellac's breakfast show tradition, the Lunch Show began as a house show organized by members of STNNNG back in 2003. The Show relocated to the Entry in 2004 and has since maintained an annual residence. It's a unique opportunity to put away some free food and catch an indoor gig during daylight hours. In addition to the usual supply of sandwiches, vegan chili and other potluck food items, this year both bands also have highly anticipated CDs to offer.
"The music isn't free, but the food is," Dave Storberg, Signal To Trust guitarist/vocalist, clarified.
Signal To Trust's new album, "Golden Armour," has been in the works for years and it marks the band's official full-length follow up to their highly acclaimed 2002 debut, "Folklore."
STNNNG, on the other hand, wasted no time in producing a follow up to their 2005 debut "Dignified Sissy," which helped the band take home last year's top Picked to Click honors.
Despite the copious praise STNNNG received from local press, the band doesn't seem all that phased by it. I recently spoke with STNNNG's lead vocalist Chris Besinger who referred to the band as a "noisy, obnoxious, mediocre rock band."
STNNNG's forthcoming release, "Fake Fake," delivers on all the promising elements of their debut: It's noisier, heavier, more focused, more complex and ambitious, and it includes some of the most brilliantly primal rock vocals I've ever heard. The album's leadoff track concludes with Besinger screaming the lines "Row!/Keep Rowing!" over and over with escalating ferocity for the last couple of minutes.
As both the title and the unique Aesthetic Apparatus designed packaging would suggest, "Fake Fake" features a running theme of illusion and deception.
"It's not exactly that things aren't always as they appear, but more like things are often two or more things at the same time," Besinger elaborated.
Under the auspice of the socio-political bend to Besinger's lyrics – which include references to things like "the first Iraq war," Captain America and Franz Kafka's sexual repression – illusion and deception seem particularly frightening. But on tracks like "Dubbed Warehousing," where Besinger's diabolical laughter buoys the band's heavy, noisy groove, the expressive content of the sound alone would probably be a sufficient vehicle to carry the song's textual message.
In the past month, STNNNG's played shows outside of the Twin Cities area, but the band hasn't played locally since August 2006, which only seems to further hype the CD release event.
Signal To Trust's also been recently absent from local billings since guitarist/vocalist Brian Severns left to attend grad school in New Jersey. Severns' departure left the band's future up in the air, yet they seem surprisingly unconcerned.
Bassist Pete Biasi expressed some pleasure with the uncertainty. "It's just kinda fun to keep people on their toes," he said.
Both Biasi and Storberg seem concentrated on and excited about what is certain: Their upcoming release and their opportunity to play with Severns at least one more time at the Lunch Show.
Storberg said many of the songs "Golden Armour" were actually written about two years ago, back when drummer Jonathon Warnberg was still a member. Their current drummer, Ben Ivascu, who also plays with Biasi in Falcon Crest and Total Fucking Blood, joined the band in December 2004 and played all the drum parts on the recording.
"Golden Armour" does sound similar to the band's debut, but with a few notable differences. There are moments of glorious dual guitar interaction that rock harder than anything on "Folklore," and the use of horns on the first and last tracks also helps establish the album's identity. The lyrical content of "Golden Armour" is another literary homage of sorts, but while "Folklore" found inspiration from explorer journals, the new album has Severns using his love of comic books for source material. The reference to Captain America found on STNNNG's new album is an homage and literal reference to a line from Severns' lyrics on "Cosmic Cube."
The 4th Annual Lunch Show is more than just a chance to enjoy the novelty of an indoor daytime show and get some free food, it could just be your last chance to see Signal To Trust as we currently know them, and a great opportunity to check out the live incarnation of both bands' new material.
You know the saying, "there's no such thing as a free lunch?" Well, that may be true, but if you're willing to spend a little to check out some great local music, you can help yourself to a meal on the house.
www.STNNNG.com
www.myspace.com/signaltotrust
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