Aeolian Race

A trip to prog
By Nick A. Zaino III
Globe Correspondent / August 25, 2008

The members of Aeolian Race may like to dress in psychedelic colors and rock out to the Beatles and the Doors, but when you listen to their jarring time changes, skittering guitar work, and brutal precision, it doesn't take long to realize they are knee-deep in prog rock. The local trio (right) is working on a new CD, due Sept. 15, but you can get a live preview tonight at the Midway Cafe when the band plays with California's Reason to Rebel, which also has a CD of hard-edged prog rock on the way. New Hampshire's Skamasutra rounds out the bill, which is presented by Edgartown's Aboveground Records. 21+ 9 p.m. $6. The Midway Cafe, 3496 Washington St., Jamaica Plain. 617-524-9038. www.midwaycafe.com

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2008/08/25/a_trip_to_prog/ - Boston Globe

The Tinderbox hosts four bands

Thursday, August 21
BRATTLEBORO -- The Tinderbox on Elliot Street hosts four bands in a variety of genres on Friday beginning at 8 p.m. Admission for this all ages show is $5.

The four bands -- hailing from Brattleboro, Boston, Northampton, Mass., and San Diego -- are Aeolian Race (www.myspace. com/aeolianrace), Magic People (www.myspace.com/magicpeople), Reason to Rebel (www.myspace.com/reason2rebel) and Black Pyramid (www.myspace.com/blackpyramidkills). The Boston Globe will be featuring Aeolian Race, based in Brattleboro and Boston, in next Monday's edition.

These bands represent the genres of art, experimental/noise, progressive, doom and psychedelic. Each band has received positive press and reviews for their style and live shows.



http://reformer.com/ovation/ci_10261956 - THE BRATTLEBORO REFORMER

"I decided to cut out midway through the Capacitors to catch the last half of Aeolian Race at the Courtyard before the MidPoint premiere of Sparrow Bellows, the new incarnation of one of last year’s festival highlights, The Emeralds. One might have discerned the Boston band’s sonic direction strictly from bassist Adam Abrams’ T-shirt, which read “Everybody Loves Mushrooms.” It’s been a good long time since I loved mushrooms (or, more to the point, since they loved me) but Aeolian Race brought it all back like a wet kiss on the end of a hallucinated 12-fingered fist.

The trio made an amazing amount of proggy, poppy noise, referencing My Bloody Valentine sheets of shred, courtesy of guitarist Mike Elliott, and Red-era King Crimson, by way of Abrams’ Wetton-like bass ministrations and drummer Andy Nickles’ subtle-to-perfectly-bombastic drumming. You want kamikazi? Aeolian Race had a show Sunday night ... in their home state. Where they played three nights ago. There’s your dedication to the cause. Doff your headwear and raise a glass of acid-laced libation to Aeolian Race."

-Brian Baker
- Citybeat.com

New Review from Concrete Web
CD REVIEW Aeolian Race



Band : Aeolian Race
Album Title : Landlocked Nation
Label : Above Ground Records
Distributor : Bertus
Release Date : June 2009
Review : CD
Aeolian Race from Boston, MA, from USA, has an interesting, original and distinct sound. They draw from a lot of influences, mainly in the space and riff rock and more indie sides of SST/Dischord, and they manage to churn it together into a very cohesive, catchy, yet fulfilling album. The opening track “Hidden queen of the drone throne” is a great track that really shows off the band's style and talent. It's difficult to put them into a musical category; their sound is spacey and neither too mellow nor too harsh. The punky rhythmical beats of “Hawks” will get you moving and the vocals are pretty cool as well. Their lyrics are original and well thought out. “Dead soldier’s brain” and “Alligator” tends to remind me a bit of short-lived Seid with its wacky alienated synth bleeps. Aeolian Race is rather inventive in different tones and approaches, adding some variety to the already wacky tracks. They are obviously talented and have a good thing going for themselves..
They have a few songs you can listen to at myspace webpage.
Anyone looking for a new creative sound should check these guys out cause something like this is very rare to come by these days It's a nice debut CD that will leave you completely satisfied and yet begging for more.
90/100
Peter Brems.

http://www.concreteweb.be/index_main.htm - Concrete Web

Aeolian Race – Landlocked Nation
Aeolian Race – Landlocked Nation
Country of Origin: USA Format: CD Record Label: Above Ground Catalogue #: AGR02001 Year of Release: 2009 Time: 41:12 Info: Aeolian Race Samples: Click here
Tracklist: The Hidden Queen Of The Drone Throne (4:46), Hawks (4:36), Dead Soldier’s Brain (4:04), Insanity (3:22), Tethys Ocean (1:29), The Great Spacecoaster (4:09), Lady Blue (8:13), Alligator (2:48), Stillborn (5:48), Untitled (1:53)
Straddling the boundaries of psychedelic, space, progressive and hard rock, Boston trio Aeolian Race’s debut outing Landlocked Nation certainly covers a lot of ground. Obvious influences are the grand-daddies of space rock Hawkwind, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and Larks Tongues-period King Crimson, but the band manage to put their own slant on things and avoid being too much a product of their influences (bar a few moments of over-zealous worship at the throne of the ‘crazy diamond’).
The songs are fluid and cover a lot of ground, moving (very swiftly indeed at times) between frantic jams and chilled out, mellow whimsy; a case in point is the excellently named opener The Hidden Queen Of The Drone Throne - at one time it is indeed very drone-ish, to the extent that you think the band are about to fall asleep at their instruments, before we suddenly some tight, powerful hard rock riffing – its almost as if one band, too doped up to know what they were doing, are suddenly replaced by a younger, livelier one wired up on caffeine!
Whilst never straying too far from the psychedelic end of the prog rock spectrum, the various songs give a tip of the hat to a number of other, less likely genres. Insanity has an acoustic, folky vibe, at least in its early stages; Tethys Ocean is a krautrock-esque, atmospheric instrumental; The Great Spacecoaster adds a touch of ska-like rhythm to the verses and has a modern power pop chorus, whilst guitarist Mike Elliott overdoses on the wah-wah pedal on Lady Blue.
Occasionally the quirkiness seems at times a little forced, and the changes in tempo and musical style rather jar – Dead Soldier’s Brain, with its ending which seems unrelated to what has gone before and simply tacked on so a bit lying around in the studio could be used, is a case in point. Also the song-writing on the second half of the album is rather patchy when compared with the first – both Alligator and the ‘hidden’ last track (why do bands still do this?) are throwaways that could easily have been left off, whilst the aforementioned Lady Blue could have done with a bit of editing.
That said, this remains a decent first effort that puts a fresh and original spin on a genre that often seems content to wallow in its own past glories. Those looking for music that is a little ‘out there’ but doesn’t sacrifice song structure or melody for whackiness would be well advised to investigate further.
Conclusion: 6.5 out of 10
TOM DE VAL


http://www.dprp.net/reviews/200944.php#aeolian - http://www.dprp.net

Oh man, these guys had me a first note, I’m digging Aeolian Race’s Landlocked Nation in a huge way. They interpret Psychedelia the way The Minutemen interpreted Punk Rock towards the latter part of their career – you knew they were Punk, even though they played CCR and Van Halen covers and blended jazz with roots rock. Both bands are true originals, unique in their own right.

Aeolian Race is a Boston based band that most resembles the early, progressive psych & spacerock of Pink Floyd but with hints of early Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Hawkwind and King Crimson, with the more modern progressive moments of Queens of the Stone Age, the great Colour Haze and add a bit of the quirky jam band aesthetic that most closely resembles Phish or Widespread Panic. I could listen to songs like the QOTSA-like “Alligator”, the great, acoustically (mostly) driven “Insanity”, the starts with a roar, ends with a whisper epic “Still Born”, the Floyd-meets-Phish beauty of “The Hidden Queen Of The Drone Throne” all day long. And I just might do that when I wake up tomorrow morning. I’m totally into this one, one of those rare magical moments when a first listen gets it’s hooks in me.

I love the way the arrangements are structured on Landlocked Nation. Aeolian Race uses the same tension/release method of building sonic peaks and valleys while still maintaining a wistful melodicism and catchiness similar to the way Colour Haze crafts their music. These three are wonderful musicians as well, it’s evident that they know their respective instruments up, down, sideways and backwards.

Great stuff, I really enjoyed this. It makes me want to go watch that VH1 special on Pink Floyd again. - HellrideMusic.com

I'll bet these guys have a lot of Pink Floyd albums in their collections,
especially the early ones. And some of the mid-period King Crimson
ones, too. This is not just a throwback to seventies acid rock, though;
their drummer, who was last to join the band, has a background in jazz
and rock that comes in handy, and also keeps the band from succumbing
to prog-rock cliches. A lot of other sounds not typically associated
with prog-rock show up, including nods to metal, funk wah guitar, folk
music, new wave and ska rhythms, and even pop. Prog-rock and psych
remain at the core of the trio's sound, though, although their approach
is nowhere near as measured and stuffy as the music of their biggest
(apparent) influences. The result of the melding of all these different
influences and directions is an album that's definitely rooted in prog
/ psych tropes, but still poppy enough to appeal to people beyond prog
and psych circles. There's plenty of tripped-out freakouts and
psychotronic guitar to keep the acid-heads happy, but the more
pop-oriented structures and vocals make their potential appeal much
broader than one might first suspect. This is definitely worth checking
out.

http://theonetruedeadangel.blogspot.com/
- http://theonetruedeadangel.blogspot.com/