Irrational Fear

Irrational Fear
" Closer to Daylight "
Genre: rock
reviewed by Annette Warner

Completely wonderful harmonies and a truly enjoyable blend of chick singers that mean business in the rock world. I couldn’t help but be reminded of some Pretenders, but was still able to appreciate the unique sound Lynn Elliott and Rebecca Reed brought to this twelve song CD. Although some really cool inspiration and down to earth tunage, at times I was overwhelmed by the bassy approach to the production. Never-the-less, the duo possesses a great deal of energy and lyrical intelligence between them and I enjoyed the listening experience :)

- GoGirlsMusic

"Like Townshend and Daltry, I’d wager that in Lynn Elliott, Rebecca Reed has found just the right voice for her lyrics. Any space between folk, alt-rock and punk is used to form a musical relationship you can wrap your ears around. Good stuff!"
David Lilly Louisville
Music News

- David Lilly

Irrational Fear
By Tim Roberts [Louisville Music News – May 2005]
Manifesto: a statement of strong belief, a code by which to live, a guide, the instruction manual for your soul or whatever drives you. Manifestos are announced to the world by actions taken by the person or persons declaring them. Sometimes they're written and published, maybe even publicly recited. Or they can be wrapped in music and scattered out to the public. Some do it with a specific agenda, a fervent hope to change the world, or at least let the rest of us know where they stand on certain issues, which can be either political or personal or both.

. . .Closer to Daylight from the female duo Irrational Fear (featured on the cover of the March issue of this very newspaper). . . is . . . a relaxed, personal declaration of lessons learned from bad relationships, judgmental people and new love discovered. . . [T]he performers give us more than glimpses into their lives. They open their hearts and minds and let their contents pour out. Put another way, . . . Irrational Fear open[s] the faucets and let[s] the tubs fill.
[T]he [manifesto] Irrational Fear presents in Closer to Daylight deals with matters of the psyche. For them, if you ignore the lessons that are learned from experience, if you continue to damage relationships because of destructive behaviors, if you doubt your own worth, or even if you just act like a jackass to everyone you know, your world will be filled with sorrow and puzzlement.

Rebecca Reed and Lynn Elliott, the core members of Irrational Fear, present their manifesto in a dozen songs on Closer. Joined by bassist Mike Wilson and ubiquitous drummer Billy Bartley (both of whose tracks were recorded earlier and separately from Reed's and Elliot's), these two women have a laid-back, airy sound that borders on being a gentle whisper, the kind that carries dreams, hopes, worries and fears to someone close who wants to hear them.

That overall sound is augmented by the skills brought to it by noted Nashville-based engineer and producer Joe Funderburk, who produced Hank Williams III's latest release Lovesick, Broke and Driftin' and who did post-production for Closer.

But not everything is nice and quiet and slow in the manifesto of Irrational Fear. The tempo picks up and drives home in "The Space Between" and in the airplay-friendly "Benefit of the Doubt," which starts with a squeal of feedback, a growling guitar introduction, then slips easily into gentle pop, where lead vocalist Elliott sings, "You've shown me like no one else ... / The benefit of the doubt I'll keep for me." It is perhaps the one song that best illustrates the Irrational Fear manifesto: Don't let doubt creep into something you feel is certain.

The women of Irrational Fear present their manifesto in Closer to Daylight without being preachy or overstating their case. . . Underneath . . ., however, is a sense of hope for change.

. . . For Irrational Fear, it is personal.

(For more info, it's www.irrationalfear.biz.)
- Louisville Music News

"Wow what a voice! Wonderful well crafted songs. I can’t wait to catch them live. I suggest you check them out too."
Mark Davis
Louisville Music Industry Alliance
- Mark Davis

Closer to Daylight
Irrational Fear
(Playing Havoc)
Alt Rock

The pair of Louisville women who front Irrational Fear have an excellent sense of the recent past, circa 1992. They subscribe to the “reintroduction of melody” ethic in hard, gritty rock that arose from the Sasquatch Flannel Invasion from HMV to MTV. The album has that sort of early ’90s optimism to it, captured in the thought that simple chord structures and A-B-A-B-C-B songwriting can move people and things on a profound level. For as gloomy as the grunge era may have been, there was a tremendously optimistic undercurrent that things were new, changing, unique and young.

This, their debut album, mixes nicely a songwriter’s knack for hooks with proto-feminist lyrics. It’s chunky and dirty as much as it’s clean, pretty and rehearsed … sounds very natural. There’s a subtle arc that begins with the coarse opening notes of the first (and title) track, a tuneful musing on female empowerment and self-discovery that harkens the Riot Grrl days, and ends with the softly reflective “Deconstruct.” It’s the loud/soft dynamic stretched over an entire record, as an explosive beginning cooling more than 45 minutes of thoughtful and well-constructed tunes. —Stephen George [LEO Weekly – 6/15/2005]
- LEO Weekly

"You all Rock!!"
Laney Goodman
Women in Music host
- Laney Goodman

"You all Rock!!"
Laney Goodman
Women in Music host
- Laney Goodman

by Tim Roberts

O fortune, variable as the moon, you ever wax and wane; this detestable life now maltreats us, then grants us our wildest desires; it melts both poverty and power like ice.
-"Fortune, Empress of the World,"
from Carmina Burana

I'm a wrecking ball - demolition dust. I hope you're not in my way - not in my wake. Leaving your small mind - Leaving your small life - Watch me rise.
-"Doggy Dog World,"
Rebecca Reed

There was a snap in the air on that Saturday night in mid February. My wife and I walked away from our car parked against the curb on Preston Street, heading toward Uncle Pleasant's tavern. Close to its entrance stood a knot of five young people: four young women and a guy. The tavern's side door opened behind them and a wiry youngster in a black t-shirt and black wool cap rolled a battered amp onto the sidewalk, the metal casters rumbling on the concrete. The young women were gushing at the guy standing with them, their praises loaded with words like "awesome" and "kick ass," (annunciated as if each word was its own declarative sentence, with force and certainty). One of them was talking on a cell phone, informing the person on the other end that they were finished. The blue glow from the phone's lighted screen and touchpad framed one side of her face like a fluorescent prosthetic jaw.
Clearly the opening band had finished it set and was loading out. Clearly the girls had liked the show.
Inside Uncle Pleasant's, a large black-and-gray tabby named Baby lounged on a striped easy chair next to the entrance. Up at the bar, two women were being served beer in frosted glasses. A large slice of orange bobbed in each. Rebecca Reed and Lynn Elliot, the two front women of Irrational Fear, had just finished their sound check and were getting ready to play a short set. Sandwiched between two heavy rock acts, they faced a task: keeping the ones who were there entertained with their easygoing alt-country and rock sounds while warming up the people coming in for the third band that evening. Considering where they were playing that crisp February night, they probably had nothing to worry about.
For years Uncle Pleasant's was known as the place where anything could be played as long as it was good: a slam dance festival one night, Bluegrass the next, then maybe two nights of jazz. It went dark for a few years (a common story in Louisville: bar costs high, crowd attendance low, nothing left to do but flip the chairs onto the tables and shut off the lights as you leave), but it reopened last autumn. The place is on a block of Preston Street that has begrudgingly given itself over to the changes of the past five decades. Just half a block north of where it intersects with Eastern Parkway, the neighborhood has retained several landmarks from the past. A movie theater that has been converted into apartments, its sign hanging at a right angle from the front, the name obscured by a thick coat of black rust. A carpet store in a wide building with large picture windows and beveled entrance stoops that cannot hide its former iteration as a dress shop. A three-story red brick building with a tavern on the ground floor and an entrance to the apartments above it in the center of the building, its name in black metal letters on the front of the entrance's overhang. St. Joseph's Infirmary used to occupy the large parcel of land behind Uncle Pleasant's. It was torn down more than 20 years ago. In its place, tract apartments rented mostly by University of Louisville students.
Just like the music played at Uncle Pleasant's, both then and now, the neighborhood has a stubborn charm with a modern gloss. Luck has spared all of it from suffering the same fate as the major hospital that once served as its anchor. It is like an old favorite great-uncle who's always glad to see you, the one who still has a shelf full of cedar knick-knacks he picked up from roadside souvenir stands on his trips across the country, ones he's had since before you were born, mounted right over his plasma TV set with the Dolby 5.1 surround sound. It has durability, comfort and a touch of flash.

Just like the music of Irrational Fear.
During their 40-minute set, Reed and Elliott, backed by their current rhythm section of drummer Donnie Arbuckle and bassist Derrick Carpenter, got attention and warm applause from the crowd at Uncle Pleasant's. At one point an impressed new fan brought each of the women a shot of peppermint Schnapps. There was a subtle energy in the room. And both women felt it. Before they played the final two songs in their set, Elliott said her thanks to the crowd, then, in her honey-brandy voice, capped it with, "Spring's comin'. Be happy."
Reed and Elliott both are: happy about performing, about their debut CD, about the opportunities fortune has placed in their paths (or, put another way, the stuff they've lucked into). It has been hard work since they formed six years ago, but they payoffs have been swee - Louisville Music News

by Tim Roberts

O fortune, variable as the moon, you ever wax and wane; this detestable life now maltreats us, then grants us our wildest desires; it melts both poverty and power like ice.
-"Fortune, Empress of the World,"
from Carmina Burana

I'm a wrecking ball - demolition dust. I hope you're not in my way - not in my wake. Leaving your small mind - Leaving your small life - Watch me rise.
-"Doggy Dog World,"
Rebecca Reed

There was a snap in the air on that Saturday night in mid February. My wife and I walked away from our car parked against the curb on Preston Street, heading toward Uncle Pleasant's tavern. Close to its entrance stood a knot of five young people: four young women and a guy. The tavern's side door opened behind them and a wiry youngster in a black t-shirt and black wool cap rolled a battered amp onto the sidewalk, the metal casters rumbling on the concrete. The young women were gushing at the guy standing with them, their praises loaded with words like "awesome" and "kick ass," (annunciated as if each word was its own declarative sentence, with force and certainty). One of them was talking on a cell phone, informing the person on the other end that they were finished. The blue glow from the phone's lighted screen and touchpad framed one side of her face like a fluorescent prosthetic jaw.
Clearly the opening band had finished it set and was loading out. Clearly the girls had liked the show.
Inside Uncle Pleasant's, a large black-and-gray tabby named Baby lounged on a striped easy chair next to the entrance. Up at the bar, two women were being served beer in frosted glasses. A large slice of orange bobbed in each. Rebecca Reed and Lynn Elliot, the two front women of Irrational Fear, had just finished their sound check and were getting ready to play a short set. Sandwiched between two heavy rock acts, they faced a task: keeping the ones who were there entertained with their easygoing alt-country and rock sounds while warming up the people coming in for the third band that evening. Considering where they were playing that crisp February night, they probably had nothing to worry about.
For years Uncle Pleasant's was known as the place where anything could be played as long as it was good: a slam dance festival one night, Bluegrass the next, then maybe two nights of jazz. It went dark for a few years (a common story in Louisville: bar costs high, crowd attendance low, nothing left to do but flip the chairs onto the tables and shut off the lights as you leave), but it reopened last autumn. The place is on a block of Preston Street that has begrudgingly given itself over to the changes of the past five decades. Just half a block north of where it intersects with Eastern Parkway, the neighborhood has retained several landmarks from the past. A movie theater that has been converted into apartments, its sign hanging at a right angle from the front, the name obscured by a thick coat of black rust. A carpet store in a wide building with large picture windows and beveled entrance stoops that cannot hide its former iteration as a dress shop. A three-story red brick building with a tavern on the ground floor and an entrance to the apartments above it in the center of the building, its name in black metal letters on the front of the entrance's overhang. St. Joseph's Infirmary used to occupy the large parcel of land behind Uncle Pleasant's. It was torn down more than 20 years ago. In its place, tract apartments rented mostly by University of Louisville students.
Just like the music played at Uncle Pleasant's, both then and now, the neighborhood has a stubborn charm with a modern gloss. Luck has spared all of it from suffering the same fate as the major hospital that once served as its anchor. It is like an old favorite great-uncle who's always glad to see you, the one who still has a shelf full of cedar knick-knacks he picked up from roadside souvenir stands on his trips across the country, ones he's had since before you were born, mounted right over his plasma TV set with the Dolby 5.1 surround sound. It has durability, comfort and a touch of flash.

Just like the music of Irrational Fear.
During their 40-minute set, Reed and Elliott, backed by their current rhythm section of drummer Donnie Arbuckle and bassist Derrick Carpenter, got attention and warm applause from the crowd at Uncle Pleasant's. At one point an impressed new fan brought each of the women a shot of peppermint Schnapps. There was a subtle energy in the room. And both women felt it. Before they played the final two songs in their set, Elliott said her thanks to the crowd, then, in her honey-brandy voice, capped it with, "Spring's comin'. Be happy."
Reed and Elliott both are: happy about performing, about their debut CD, about the opportunities fortune has placed in their paths (or, put another way, the stuff they've lucked into). It has been hard work since they formed six years ago, but they payoffs have been swee - Louisville Music News