The Demigs

‘Welcome to Hard Times’
The Demigs (I Love Math)
4 stars out of 5

Texas-based indie rock quartet The Demigs have been kicking around for almost a decade without ever breaking into the mainstream. Their first two albums — 2007’s “Yardling” debut and 2011’s “Cities Can Wait” — earned favorable reviews but didn’t do enough to make this talented band a household name.

No one will ever accuse The Demigs of lacking ambition in the wake of third release “Welcome to Hard Times.” This is a mammoth undertaking, a two-CD set with 20 tracks clocking in at more than 90 minutes. The most impressive aspect about the album is that it never feels padded or overstuffed. The Demigs manage to maintain the momentum from beginning to end and that’s hard to do on records with half the size of “Welcome to Hard Times.”

The Demigs lure listeners right in with “Welcome to Hard Times (Vacant Houses)” and “Crossed Out Names,” and the first-rate tunes continue with “Long Runs the Fox,” “Everything Is a Weapon,” “Henry & Maggie,” “Any Other Pattern,” “Dead By Monday,” “Athena Goes to War,” “Yeller” and “Welcome to Hard Times II (Black Cat/White Ghost).” Here’s hoping this is the record that gets The Demigs their due. (Jeffrey Sisk) - Pittsburgh in Tune

The Demigs look way, way up in 20-song release
By Lucinda Breeding Features Editor cbreeding@dentonrc.com
Published: 26 February 2015 12:45 PM

It’s been four years since the Demigs have had new music to push.
And now? Boy, does the band have some new music.
The indie rock four-piece unveils its long-awaited double album Saturday night at Dan’s Silverleaf.
Welcome to Hard Times is a chunky record, full of bare-knuckle sentiment from Chris Demiglio, the lyricist-in-chief, and a fresher, tighter sound than the band has ever produced. Hard Times sports 20 songs, each more mature and atmospheric than the last. And taken as a body of work, it’s a record of wry, honest feeling set to a soundtrack that bruises as easily as it draws blood.
Youthful hope marked Yardling, the Demigs’ 2007 debut, while 2011’s Cities Can Wait felt more aggressive, with in-your-face brawn. Welcome to Hard Times is a more epic offering from wiser (and maybe more psychologically wizened) musicians. But the music sounds far from weary.
“Melamine” is full of bright energy and Demiglio’s deceptive tenor — the guy can go all Rufus Wainwright on you, singing about deep wounds but making it sound oh so happy. “Everything Is a Weapon” boils with inconvenient rage. Over on the second disc, “Dead by Monday” is still very much alive. And the final track on the project, “Monochrome Blues,” feels neither monochrome or blue.
Rumor had it that Alex Hastings, guitarist, songwriter and recording engineer, kept a tight lid on this newest crop of music from a long-underrated local band. And Hastings admitted that he needed everything to sound right before doing anything like dropping singles or sharing files.
“I wanted to make sure everything sounded exactly the way we wanted it to sound,” Hastings said. “We spent probably most of our time working on the recording.”
Hastings and Demiglio said they were confident in the musicians who appear on the double album — including Hares on the Moutain member Petra Kelly on violin, and Will Kremer on cello. Centro-matic alumnus Scott Danbom sat in behind the keys of a Hammond M-2. Jeffrey Barnes plays clarinet, and applies the instrument without the impish giggle he affected when he was still among the members of Brave Combo.
But the long wait, Hastings said, was a matter of making a record that sounded as competently made as the musicians who played on it.
“I don’t think there was ever a need to make a double record,” Demiglio said. “That wasn’t the case.”
“Right,” Hastings said. “Cities was supposed to be a double. But it was like, at some point, this needs to be done. I had just joined the band, and I came on with the understanding that one of my jobs was going to be recording the record. So we got to work on Cities, and it was like we were going to spend two or three months knocking out a simple rock album, and the opposite happened.”
Demiglio said the band considered recording an EP, but it’s customary for EPs to be shorter projects. And the Demigs had two records’ worth of music.
“It felt like they all needed to be on this record,” Demiglio said.
While Yardling and Cities Can Wait lifted a veil on the band’s influences — Pavement, dashes of Sebadoh and touches of Local H — Welcome to Hard Times shows the Demigs at their most original and cohesive. Welcome to Hard Times sounds like a Demigs record, not like a nascent tribute to favorite influences.
“Some of that will boil down to Alex and I playing together for a long time now,” Demiglio said. “As a player, you start melding with the people you spend time with, the people you listen to and who play with you. I think Alex spending as much time learning the craft of recording affected how we play together.”
On Hard Times, the Demigs sound like a band that has benefited from its creative duo having some conflicting ideas. Hastings and Demiglio said they don’t see each other as guys with competing visions, though.
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” Hastings said. “I think we agree on what we want to do as musicians, and I think we agree on our vision for what this project was going to do. Now, how we got there? We don’t always get to the same place the same way.”
Demiglio agreed.
Lyrically, Hard Times feels like Chris Demiglio plowing over scorched earth.
Demiglio has honed his gift for observing that sort of everyman simmer in a way that spells out your feelings about the arbitrary way the world always, always works. On the first record, Demiglio packs five years’ worth of frustration into “Pluto,” a song about how the last planet in our solar system had its status changed.
And we’ve all been there, gormless and sputtering when a truth rooted in childhood trust is just not the truth anymore, and all because a guy in a lab coat made a pronouncement. Demiglio, dressed up in jangly indie guitar, stands in for us. He bites back at the so-called certainties erased in punchy headlines and cold comfort.
“Everything Is a Weapon” is more blatant in its rage. Demiglio wrote it after a real-life event — a job layoff — and imagines how everything on your desk could be used to answer another arbitrary gut-punch.
There are lighter songs that are still about heavy things. “Distress Signals” goes out to “the girl in the band,” who plays guitar when she’s at home alone. “It rips me in half, ’cause she don’t want to play with me anymore,” Demiglio sings to a peppy bass line. The guitar twangs along and he says, “I miss you, so plug into the board. … Spare me the sitcom romance, and the resolution. Watch my lungs implode like the sun.” The chorus drops for a sweet line or two, but it’s all sunshine in the end.
Sonically, Hard Times sounds like Hastings served as the brake to Demiglio’s gas. By the end of the album’s second record, it has a moodier, broader feel.
“Playing affected the recording. Melody and counter-melody came into it for us. I know I became more comfortable, too, with space,” Hastings said.
“After you’ve been playing a while, making a record can be kind of like painting,” Demiglio said. “You see things you want to add. You change certain things to make it feel the way it feels to you. And you can stare at it and see things you never noticed.”
LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877.
Track by track
Welcome to Hard Times, the Demigs
“Henry & Maggie” — This closer to the first record is the Demigs at its most indie-folk. Guest musician Petra Kelly’s violin and Alex Hasting’s guitar work are solidly acoustic. The sad song about a woman who cheats on her lover and pays dearly. Or does Harry pay dearly? The bill comes out about even, and the song makes judicious use of keyboard, strings and voice. There are no drums on the track, but you can feel poor Harry’s pulse without them anyway.
“Distress Signals” — Early on the second record, it sounds like the band is walking on sunshine, but listen close and you can hear what writer Radclyffe Hall called the “well of loneliness.” But the Demigs dance through the sadness and make the memory a bright one.
“Monochrome Blues” — On the final track of the project, the song starts in a waltzing rhythm. Chris Demiglio is gathering his sins together. “Keep catchin’ flack for having faith,” he sings. “Just a sign to me, the end of days is nearly here.” Guest artist Jeffrey Barnes embroiders the sad song with a happy dance. It’s as if Demiglio is visiting a well-worn Irish tune with a clear head and a rock ’n’ roll heart.
— Lucinda Breeding - Denton Record-Chronicle

The Demigs, from Denton, Texas, are an American/indie rock quartet who pours all of their emotions into their music. In their third album Welcome To Hard Times, the group truly wears its heart on its sleeve. Welcome To Hard Times is a compilation of tunes with fetching choruses that accurately displays the bands exceptional songwriting abilities. Welcome To Hard Times is an album that is worth your full and undivided attention.

Guitarist Alex Hastings engineered The Demigs latest album at Shady Lane, the studio run by the band. The cover art for Welcome To Hard Times was created by writer/guitarist/vocalist Chris Demiglio. His artwork is so impressive that it was also curated for an art exhibit. Welcome To Hard Times is available for purchase April 14 courtesy of I Love Math Records. The Demigs are currently on tour. Be sure to check them out if you have the opportunity. -Winston E. Brewington, Jr. - earmilk.com

Four long years have passed since the Demigs’ sophomore album, Cities Can Wait. (That same gap separates Wait from its predecessor, 2007’s Yardling.)

But here’s the thing with the Denton quartet — the wait is always worth it, a theory cemented by the new double album, Welcome to Hard Times. A leviathan by local standards, this expansive, ferociously intelligent and lovingly rendered examination of modern life is a testament to singer-songwriter Chris Demiglio’s creative tenacity.

“Change is coming up/Like it or not,” sighs Demiglio, backed by Alex Hastings, Jason Bacchus and Matthew Morin, on the title track, his falsetto cutting against the messy thicket of guitar, drums and bass.

That sense of resignation perfumes many of the 20 tracks spread here (a vinyl release is planned for later this year), which might sound grim but in the Demigs’ capable hands is nothing less than brutal beauty. As Demiglio sings on the closer, Monochrome Blues: “Sing until the last note/Comes falling out your throat/You only get one rodeo.”

The Demigs will celebrate Times’ release Saturday at Dan’s Silverleaf, with support from RTB2 and Daniel Markham. - DFW.com

Denton, Texas, band The Demigs made its Norman debut last month at Norman Music Festival 8. Now, they’re coming back for more. On Saturday night, they’ll pay a rocking visit to Red Brick Bar on Main Street.
“With us, it’s always a lot of high energy,” band leader Chris Demiglio said. “It’s going to be louder and more raucous than our recorded material. Our live show is rock ‘n’ roll.”
For those unfamiliar with the music of this guitar and drums quartet founded in 2006, there’s a superlative way to start getting acquainted. It’s their new double album titled “Welcome to Hard Times.”
All 20 tracks are posted in their entirety at SoundCloud and at thedemigs.com. It’s good stuff. The disc is refreshingly animated and unpretentious. You won’t have a hard time listening to it. The Demigs make it sound easy but, naturally, a lot of effort, talent and dedication was involved.
“I’m happy that we’re into the process that involves actually getting out and playing the album live,” Demiglio said. “It has been two years of work to get it done. We have our own studio (Shady Lane) and do everything but the mastering. Our previous two albums tended to be longer, too, with 14 or 15 tracks.
“The songs all were written fairly close together and felt like they came from the same place. We like to make the coolest possible music and good records that are broad and all-encompassing.”
The thorough length of the album flies in the face of today’s trend toward singles and skinny EPs. The Demigs’ songs sport well-crafted lyrics and stout guitars. They don’t all sound alike.
There’s a smorgasbord of emotional jangle, bold percussion and thoughtful balance between gentle and roaring passages. Demiglio’s vocals straddle that precarious perch between being unassuming and comforting. Lyrical content is poetic but not so enigmatic that you have no clue what the words are meant to convey.
“The lyrical themes that run through this album go to the title ‘Welcome to Hard Times,’” Demiglio said. “About getting older and trying to beat that clock, losing a job and putting things in perspective that no matter what happens, you have to just keep going. Recurring motifs are of lost love and not really finding your place in the world.”

That may all sound like downers, but the music is smile-inducing. One song, titled “Matamoros,” could be The Kingsmen (“Louie Louie”) meets The Black Lips (“Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo”). It’s a revelry tune that demanded explanation because “The Matamoros Gang” made the liner notes’ thank you list.
“We headed with some friends to the Guadalupe River for spring break,” Demiglio said. “About halfway there, it was decided that since none of us had been to Mexico, that let’s just go.”
They crossed the border and found a club featuring all you could drink for $10. New friends, cash diplomacy with a police officer and an all-night rowdy hotel room bash figure into the saga.
“We went overboard and it felt like the perfect party song and ended up on the record,” he said.
In addition to their music, The Demigs wanted a visually appealing album package. Getting it was a lesson learned wholly in line with the rest of their do-it-yourself philosophy.
“I went to three different artists and gave all three seed money and all three of them did not complete the job,” he said. “I had to do it myself because I couldn’t count on anyone else.”
The result is an extraordinary work of art that became the record cover. Demiglio haunted estate sales and used book stores for months, collecting illustrations from volumes dating back to the 19th century.
He made an intricate Marc Chagall-like collage depicting what could be a medieval city with fantastic images in the sky. It’s indicative of The Demigs’ imagination and artistic integrity. They already showed a slice of it at NMF 8. On Saturday, Norman will get another piece of the puzzle. -Doug Hill - Norman Transcript

Truth in advertising comes courtesy of Welcome to Hard Times, the new double album from The Demigs. A bleak questioning of existence on Earth that was “spurned from the wreckage of a war and a hurricane”, Welcome to Hard Times holds a cynical world view on songs such as “Long Runs the Fox,” the Philip K. Dick caste system of “Pushers & Pullers” and “Pluto,” a rebuke of interstellar science which does nothing to address issues of the here and now on this planet. Working in a bit of sly fan fiction, “Henry & Maggie” posits a dystopian postscript to Unnatural History, Cartoon Network’s 2010 live-action TV series.

Divided into two halves, the Old Testament decimation that anchors the first half of Welcome to Hard Times is fleetingly quashed by the British Invasion brevity of the album’s opening second half sobriquet, “Mr. Timer.” A ringleader for the anesthetized, Timer marches the lemmings towards The Apocalypse through the sonic atom bomb of “Dead by Monday,” the collapsing “Arches” and castling second part of the album’s opening title track, where “On this Godless earth / The meek shall inherit nothing.”

Bearing a looser structure, the second half is peppered with blues, country, funk and ’60s guitar rock. Disregarding the album’s overall conceit, Welcome to Hard Times is one hell of a fun listen. Songs like the celebratory “Matamoros” and sing-along “Distress Signals” are standout jams, while the sprawling “Paisley Desert” and closing hymn “Monochrome Blues” give Nels Cline (Wilco) a run for his money.

A dense, thought-provoking piece of art, the Denton, Texas quartet has reinvigorated the near-defunct concept album for the 21st century. A technicolored apogee of the first half-century of rock, Welcome to Hard Times stands as The Demigs’ seminal statement. -magearwig - bucketfullofnails.com

The ‘90s indie vibe is strong with the Demigs, a rock group that hails from Denton, Texas. This vibe is quite apparent on the tune “Melamine”, a clean guitar-driven number off of their forthcoming double LP, the 20-song Welcome to Hard Times. With sonic corollaries that include ones atypical to the indie realm, namely the New Zealand-based “kiwi rock” of groups like the Clean and the 3-Ds, the Demigs have a distinctive sound that’s matched by their political savvy. In addition to the issues tackled by “Melamine” specifically (read more on that below), the quartet has also taken a stance against fracking in their native Texas.

Singer/guitarist Chris Demiglio tells PopMatters about the track, “‘Melamine’ is the embodiment of the deteriorating world in which we live. Weaving through allusions to the 2008 Chinese Milk Scandal, in which thousands were poisoned by the addition of the chemical melamine to milk and infant formula, the song painstakingly reminds the listener of the seemingly irreversible path humans are faithlessly blazing.” -Brice Ezell - Popmatters.com

The Demigs, Cities Can Wait: In a region packed tight with top-notch songwriters, Denton's Chris Demiglio is practically without peer. Looking askance at life and love, pouring his unique insights into kinetic songs brimming with drama and melody, his band, the Demigs, is a criminally overlooked jewel of pop artistry.

-Preston Jones - DFW.com

In Cities Can Wait, Denton indie-pop outfit the Demigs conducts a fearless and searching moral inventory of singer-guitarist Chris Demiglio’s heart. By the time we get to the fade-out of the final track, “Slum Alaska,” a certain truth is under the spotlight. The Buddhists were right, brother. Life is unsatisfactory. The best you can do is mine meaning from life with your bare hands. Oh, and don’t let the jerks wear you down.


The Demigs debuted on the Denton music scene in 2007 with Yardling. The debut album got a warm reception from regional rock critics, but didn’t catch on with the local music fanboys and girls.

The band released its second effort this month. With Cities Can Wait, the Demigs have a moody record narrated by a voice that seems both frustrated by the confines of polite society and bored by culturally approved coping methods.

“Really, this record was embellishing on the sound we’d already created,” Demiglio said just before taking the stage at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios for a recent CD release party. “We wanted to see if we could mix the record well, and engineer well with the equipment at our disposal.”

Back in the days when the Demigs were promoting Yardling, Mark Demiglio was on drums, Annie Ramage on guitar and vocals, and Brad Row on bass. Yardling proved to be a difficult record to make, with the musicians slipping into studios to record at all hours of the day and night.

By the time Demiglio was ready to put the songs he was developing on tracks, he had assembled new personnel. Sid Bledsoe is the bassist, Alex Hastings is on guitar, and Guyton Sanders is the drummer. Together, they turned Cities Can Wait into a respectable indie-pop album — with an emphasis on indie. The group had also built a recording studio and called in favors from friends to get the best sound possible.

“It’s not too polished, it’s not too raw,” Demiglio said. “All of us were obsessed with the music on this one.”

Demiglio is utterly unapologetic about the radio-readiness of Cities Can Wait. It’s ripe for the The Local Show on “The Edge” KDGE-FM (102.1), and it’s already been spun on KKXT-FM (91.7).

“That was weird,” Demiglio said. “It was so weird to hear yourself on the radio through the phone. It was great though.”

It’s a little too indie for the Top 40 stations that deal in hip-hop and club music, but the material on Cities Can Wait could fit into any format friendly to the Toadies or Coldplay.

Say what you must, Demiglio said. He writes pop music.

“Everyone starts to go their own way when you start talking about pop music. It’s pop. I call a spade a spade. If you call it what it is, you get pop from this record.”

Sanders isn’t sure he agrees.

“I never really considered what we do pop. Nowadays, there is a fine line between pop and rock. I mean, I don’t play pop rhythms. I’m a rock drummer. ‘Black Valley Fight’ is not what I consider a pop song. There’s this chaotic thing there in that song. That’s what you do in rock.”

“You write catchy melodies,” Hastings said to Demiglio. “Catchy melodies are what pop music is. It’s not like pop music is only this one thing, this one sound.”

Sanders agreed.

“That thin line between pop and rock, where it is, depends on who you are,” Sanders said.

Demiglio isn’t afraid to gaze at his shoes in songs like “Minx” or “Lowly,” letting the reverb fuzz out the guitars and making room for some soulful piano work by contributor Kevin Thornton. In the album’s standout track, “Sophisticates & Sedatives,” Demiglio trots out some “bah-bah-bahs,” (that’s right, the No. 1 vocal beat-keeper employed by the Partridge Family) set to a guitar line that ambles easily along and keeps the vocals from turning saccharine. Demiglio, the chief songwriter of the band, is a deft writer as it turns out. In “Sophisticates & Sedatives,” Demiglio exposes the murky current beneath suburban America with the lyrics: “Third-class musicians with a secondhand religion/were first on the scene to announce another cataclysm.” The song is set to a sunny, up-tempo melody — a poetic contrast to the sober lyrics.

Musically and lyrically,

Demiglio searches himself as an Everyman, a guy trying to make the best of what he has with what he’s got. On “Gusto,” he observes a universal yen for more control and less cynicism. “The ballroom is packed/yeah, we’re bringing the guillotine back/I shouldn’t spell it out for her/But I know we go out together/go like thieves together.”

“Slum, Alaska” is insistent and ethereal, and would be utterly at home on Denton soloist Robert Gomez’s Pine Sticks and Phosphorous.

In “Black Valley Fight,” the band assumes the tough-guy posture of a protagonist who’s had enough. Call it a more American flavor of the rage found in Muse’s “Uprising.” Demiglio sings: “This is the time when we show aggression/if anyone is thinking of messing/with the likes of us … Shout and simmer/Steep in piss and vinegar/I don’t think there’s a docket/ - Denton Time

Way back in 2007, Denton's The Demigs released Yardling, a howling and thunderous debut that channeled Chris Demiglio's Pixies fascination into 13 well-executed alt-rock gems. Critics faulted Demiglio for sounding too much like Frank Black, and, to be sure, songs such as "Solvents" and "Summer Spiders" would certainly feel at home as bonus cuts on reissues of such Pixies classics as Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. Perhaps in response to such criticisms, Demiglio totally retooled his band and waited four years to release a sophomore effort. Cities Can Wait is the result of those moves and from the outset, it's clear that Demiglio wants to stand clear of any easy comparisons.

Beginning with "Red Palomino," this version of The Demigs is considerably less edgy. Gone are the over-the-top vocals and prickly guitar solos. Instead, Demiglio actually sings instead of shouts, as his trio of relatively new sidemen set a modest pace. This newfound maturity has resulted in Demiglio writing the most coherent set of songs of his career. Cuts such as "Sophisticates and Sedatives," "Lowly" and "Both Hands Out" are beautifully restrained examples of indie rock that showcase The Demigs' newfound charisma.

And, by sacrificing sheer brute force for discipline and smarts, The Demigs have made an album for folks other than Black Francis devotees.

-Darryl Smyers - Dallas Observer

STANDOUT TRACKS: “Canada,” “Black Valley Fight,” “Minx”

Recommended If You Like: Catchy pop with a post-punk twist

With their sophomore album Cities Can Wait, out April 5th, North Texas outfit The Demigs have created a sound clearly born of elder statesmen, but possessing a unique chemistry and energy all its own.


The album kicks off at once louder and softer that one expects, the initial cleanly strummed chords of “Red Palomino” snap quickly to a bright, forceful noise of disortion and reverb of mid-’90s proportions, only to fall away again to make room for Demiligio’s gentle, polished vocal. The album rides the loudquietloud wave throughout, building layers of fuzz on a solid, time-honored pop foundation. Filled with catchy hooks and quirky lyrics, the band strides confidently along the line between Brit Pop sheen and post-punk noise throughout the album’s first half.

With “Black Valley Fight,” an editorial on the nature of piety and sobriety, the tempo and mood start to shift. The pulsing Southern boogie lick of the verse erupts into an explosive buzzsaw chorus. This is the first appearance of out and out aggression, and the sudden range grabs the listener immediately. From that point on genres blend more freely, and the emotional arc of the album comes into focus.

Starting side B, the tender, breezy “Both Hands Out” features steel guitar, banjo, fiddle and a bouncing, Country-Western bass line backing up a tightly constructed, medium-paced pop gem of a vocal line. Immediately after comes “Minx,” where minor-key fuzz introduces a decidedly darker tone, filled with a lush mix of piano and wailing, reverb-laden leads that owes more to classic shoegaze than the bright rock of earlier tracks. “Chambers Full of Tracers” follows, a dark, quiet, fingerpicking sketch that is pure country-folk. The lyrics and tone slide slowly closer to melancholy throughout the second side, but the energy never lags.

Recorded and produced by the band, Cities Can Wait was created over a period of four years, and it shows. The lush production is dense, but never overcrowded. The layers of instrumentation are subtle and complimentary, experimenting with everything from phased out synthesizers to glockenspiel to the aforementioned banjo, and the band never loses sight of its strength amongst the noise. Their keen ability to craft tight, catchy pop songs anchors the album throughout, from the bright, open chords of the opening tracks, to the more melancholy second half. The Demigs succeed not by creating something wholly new, but by taking what is long familiar and making it sound fresh.

-David Brehmer - Record Pressing

If you haven’t heard them, the Demigs are a local rock/pop band that embody the DIY spirit that Denton has come to embrace as its signature quality. Guitarist/keyboardist Alex Hastings asked me to listen to the new album, Cities Can Wait, and I’m seriously pleased by it. Cities is the best CD I’ve heard that’s come out of the metroplex this year, and it doesn’t hurt that it invokes an almost Malkmusian attention in the way that every honest guitar riff and each youthful recollection demands your attention in the way you ordinarily would reserve for a veteran of the genre. I say this having never listened to any of the Demigs’ output before and having never seen them perform.

I’ve had to listen to the album a few times to really let it sink in how much of a cohesive record Cities Can Wait is, as the conflicting styles and influences mask this pretty well at first. The first few songs, including “Canada,” (which is very likely my favorite song I’ve heard in weeks) are pretty chill, Pavement/Doolittle Pixies almost surf rock sounding tracks, but that changes very drastically with the sixth track, appropriately named “Gusto” that is more of a loud, indignant rocker with Queens of the Stone Age vocals and Strokes guitars mixed with their minimalist alternative rock sound that characterizes the entire CD. The most pleasure that I got from this album has certainly been from the last five tracks though (which are closer in style to the opening tracks, but considerably darker) from “Minx” to “Slum, Alaska,” there is a gold mine of great lyrics from the opening lines: “Well, you know Jack the Ripper, they say he’s a pretty good kisser” in “Minx” to references to Swedish folk heroes, and the entire final, dreamy stanza of album closer “Slum, Alaska” that you’ll just have to hear for yourself.

My aim with the blog portion of my site is not to really objectively rate CDs, shows, etc. objectively and I refuse to do so, but I’m having a hard time not giving The Demigs’ sophomore album a lot of stars. The album artwork is also really cool, so you should definitely pick it up on April 5th.

The Demigs are performing at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios the same day with Whiskey Folk Ramblers, Spooky Folk, and The Virgin Wolves at 9:00l, so you should definitely check out that killer line-up. The show will serve as a CD release party for both the Demigs and the Virgin Wolves.

-Nathan Russell - ListenDFW.com

The Demigs have struggled to find their “sweet spot” in the past to create the cohesiveness needed for a great album. The Denton band started out in 2005 with new material in hand, hoping to find a studio to record in. Once the groups’ freshman album, Yardling, was recorded and released under the radar, front man Chris Demiglio realized that to get the quality sound he was looking for, he would need to teach himself to be a sound engineer.

“After recording Yardling, we ended up getting an entire building, at our disposal, to turn into a recording studio. We filled it with a ton of gear and made it our own. [We] also taught ourselves how to properly record music, because it was something that needed to be done to get the album done right,” Demiglio says.

While work on the second album began, the lineup started to shift. Everyone but Demiglio left for other musical outlets or moved away, so new members were brought in and the writing continued. Alex Hastings is Demiglio’s right hand man and the band’s lead guitarist. Together, they write and record anything the band puts out. Their newest album, Cities Can Wait, was four years in the making.

Demiglio says most of the songs from the new album were written while Yardling was being recorded. He says the connection to the feelings and situations in the songs is still there, even though they were penned years ago. Cities Can Wait covers heavy topics like Demiglio's divorce and finding new love. You can hear it in “Calmunism,” a song with a grim outlook on relationships.

The whole album gives off an alternative rock vibe, which coincides with their meaningful storytelling and lucid construction. Demiglio is the essence of the band; his mood and approach invite you into his state of mind. Each song bounces off the another, laying out a well-thought out journey through the band's moods and fits. “Sophisticates and Sedatives” (which you can download for free above) delivers an unfamiliar pop element, using witty bridges to loop the verses together.

Their range of influences -- George Harrison, John Vanderslice, Nada Surf, and Radiohead -- are apparent. The focus of intricate guitar work is there on “Both Hands Out,” which creates a dreamlike effect with hollow electric rifts drifting in and out of the background. But then there’s “Black Valley Fight,” ready to act as the alarm clock to your sleepy state, bringing the grungy garage band back to life. Demiglio cites Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” as inspiration for “Black Valley Fight,” saying that he fell in love all over again with the song’s dirty-yet-organic elements.


The existence of Cities Can Wait ultimately comes down to Demiglio’s raw passion. After the band had a tough time staying together after the first album, Demiglio stayed stayed the course. “I have to make music, whether I have a band or not. I liked the sound we had developed, and wanted to push it a bit further,” he said.

The sophomore album is released April 5 and will be celebrated with a release party at Rubber Gloves on Friday.

-Brenna Rushing - Pegasus News

Tuneful does it for the Denton indie-rock outfit The Demigs. The local four-piece achieves something pretty hard to do: It sounds fresh, rough around the edges and spiked with enough testosterone to please easy-listeners and rock fiends. The distorted, echo-chamber guitar calls to mind the Sundays' 1990 release, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

Oh, and if you've an ear for precise drumming that both propels the music along while somehow adding a touch of color to each song, The Demigs boast that kind of rhythm section. The band's debut album, Yardling (2007), hit the local market to a warm critical reception. The band has kept its social networking sites updated with teasers about an upcoming album.

"Sophisticates & Sedatives" sports the kind of hooks just waiting to be bought for a Target or Gap commercial. Observational lyrics feel confessional. This, from "Sophisticates": "Third-class musicians with a secondhand religion/We're first on the scene to announce another cataclysm/We were 20-something/The demise of all the nations was all we hoped to see before the eradication."

The Demigs play Dan's Silverleaf today with Tiger Tooth & Paw and MM. Doors open at happy hour, music starts at 9 p.m. Cover is $5 - Lucinda Breeding

Denton's The Demigs used to get a fair share of flack for looking and sounding like The Pixies, but Chris Demiglio and crew have come a long way since those early Frank Black comparisons. The band's sophomore effort, Cities Can Wait, is just about to hit the streets and features a much more textured sound than the fractured noise of the past. A song like "Sophisticates and Sedatives" would have sounded completely out of place on an earlier release, but now comes off as perfectly suited to the band's matured vibe. Growing older and wiser, Chris Demig may well be hitting his songwriting stride. - Darryl Smyers

Indie rock has come a long way since the days of Liz Phair and Guided by Voices.

The always-growing fragmentation of the music industry has left the word "indie" almost universally bereft of meaning. But local band The Demigs has somehow managed to achieve the energy of modern pop while retaining the "music for music's sake" approach of early indie rock that made it so likable.
In short, this band is a lot of fun.
Although it quickly drew a loyal fan base, The Demigs is only a recent addition to the Denton and Dallas-Fort Worth music scene. Lead vocalist and guitar player Chris Demiglio founded the band and moved to Denton after the demise of two previous groups, according to the band's biography on www.sonicbids.com. One, known as "Wellwisher," was an attempt to capture Brit-pop in an American idiom, while "Robin Goodfellow" exemplified post-punk on the noisy side of unconventional.
Demiglio wanted a project to combine such dissimilar styles, and The Demigs was born. Confident with its new approach, its first album, Yardling, is already on the shelves and ready to buy. It's a solid album reminiscent of early Oasis, The Strokes and The Decemberists. The last is a particularly apt comparison as both groups attain the complex mixture of hummable radio anthems and artistic integrity.
"The 98th Meridian," a track from the album, has even hit the airwaves recently with layered vocals and a polished, danceable structure that is the rule rather than the exception to the many original songs. The harsh shifts between dense harmony and space for more audible vocals on tracks like "Japanese Glass" and "Dulce" create variety in songs that could have easily fallen prey to the constant hammering and predictability so common in lesser musicians.
As for the lyrics, Demiglio has a knack for writing with both eccentricity and honesty while tastefully expressing the anti-establishment views so central to his musical culture. "Should we trade our passion for the less impressive passive?" Demiglio asks in "Japanese Glass." In the same song he states, "I like your Vicodin haircut." A ridiculous pairing of phrases, yet The Demigs pulls off such multiplicity with style and substance.
Yardling is an album that deserves attention. Local bands rarely achieve the level of versatility and cool that The Demigs has mastered. Like the end of a great movie, this is fundamentally happy music. A note of triumph can be heard on every track, the enthusiasm obvious even through the studio recording. It's difficult not to be enthusiastic with the band.
Information on where to purchase the album can be found on The Demigs' MySpace.com page, www.myspace.com/thedemigs. - Andrew McLemore

When making sense of the Demigs' greatness, it's easy to list off a bunch of sound-a-likes that make the Denton quartet seem pretty plain. The tangled line of influences strung up by debut record Yardling hits a lot of the usual suspects--Pixies, Fugazi, Strokes, Guided By Voices, Echo & The Bunnymen; ultimately, an idealized list of modern rock icons that come standard on most band bios.
The list is easy to write. What's harder is Yardling, a debut that jumps right past the "promising" stage to cement The Demigs' status as worthy members of the great DdFW pop-rock legacy.

From stoic to frenetic, from toe-tapping to throat-scraping, this album hops in all directions, but more importantly, The Demigs pull this off without losing their signature sound and core identity. Each song is punctuated by cocky basslines, pogo-happy drumming, unassuming guitarwork and Chris Demiglo, perhaps the most unique pop-rock lead singer that this city has seen in some time. Think Chris Flemmons' voice but dressed up real slick and taken to the ball; it's airy and sweet, not particularly effortful or strained, yet able to hit whatever high--or low--notes it wants.

"We're turning a deaf ear / cuz we don't speak deaf here," Chris coos on "The 98th Meridian," a song that puts his higher register voice on clear, lovely display, though two tracks later, it's a totally different beast. "Throw Me Overboard" takes its title literally; it's a two-chord alterna-thrasher that the lead singer opens with a Black Francis-style scream: "You're such a pretty girl!"

Yet even this odd number seamlessly fits in with the Weezer-y 6/8 "Northwest Skyline" only minutes later, its grungy underbelly again heightened by each element of the Demigs' guitar/bass/drums/vox attack. What's more, each of these songs--and most of the others in Yardling's 47 minute runtime--is a memorable gem, full of punctuated blasts of guitar, drum fills and bold, sing-alongable bits (from sure-classic "Humming From Outside": "I know I know, it's incessant thinking / a manner of being without the reminder of breathing") that you'll recall in concert with perfectly timed slaps of your side to the beat.

Sadly, the production doesn't befit the band, as drums are brought too far to the front and bury some of the better guitar solos--a shame on a few levels, as those guitar solos are generally restrained in dignified GBV style to otherwise not interfere with the songs. That's as much of a knock as Yardling's gonna get today, though, as it's the kind of all-the-way LP that recalls the range, energy and devotion of The Wrens' pop-rock classic The Meadowlands. And to think, The Wrens didn't craft their classic until they hit their mid-30s; how many more of these can we expect from The Demigs? - Sam Machovek

First of all: whichever reviewer labeled The Demigs screamo, please come to my office so I can throw something sharp and pointy at you. For shame. That's just plain wrong.

Let's move on.

It's rare that an album comes into this office, is listened to by several co-workers, and of those, unanimously enjoyed and applauded. Yardling is one of those albums.

The Demigs debut record is a trip along the indie-pop spectrum. Pulling bits and pieces from a range of influences (Sonic Youth, The Decemberists) and sometimes sounding quite similar to the pop-pioneers before them (The Pixies), this album still possesses an energy and creativity that clearly belongs to this Denton-based foursome (made up of Chris Demiglio- vocals, Eric Lee- guitar, Mark Demiglio- drums, and Brad Row- bass).

One thing that stands out in Yardling is the often intricate instrumentation created from simple instruments (the basics: guitar, bass, drums, some piano). There are certainly the tracks where the percussion follow a basic, repeating rhythmic pattern and the guitar-work is part and parcel with "strumming," such as a majority of "Curse on the World." However, if you pay attention, those songs are trying to express a sort of depression, complacency, or boredom. In fact, the entire album is quite adept at expressing the subject matter lyrically, vocally, and instrumentally.

Yardling begins with "Solvents," a fairly simple sounding song with interesting poetic qualities. While the two have probably never met, since they are separated by more than a decade on the Denton music timeline, the tempo of this song reminds me of a typical Salim Nourallah piece: smart, quirky pop (though Salim and Chris's vocals are the songs' elements furthest from comparison).

How different the second tune, "Summer Spiders," is from "Solvents," sets the expectations for the entire record. "Summer Spiders" is a darker, lower octave, song that conveys a sense of disarray. Constant cymbals keep this tune sounding more noise rock and disjointed, while whining sounds of interference from the guitar play off the overlaid yet differently sung vocals.

For me, the fourth song, "98th Meridian," is one of the defining songs of Yardling. It comprises all the great elements of the album, with interesting percussion and a flirty bass-line. The fuzzy vocals do less to stand out over the instrumentation, rather blending to a certain degree, becoming an instrument of its own. The song ebbs and flows, peaks and falls, rolling over you before breaking into the intermittent, pop-infused parts.

Two songs later you hear "Throw Me Overboard," which is a complete departure from the rest of the album thus far. Chris breaks not only into screaming throughout the entire song, but into this quazi-psychotic rant. Let's step back for a second and examine why, although there is quite erratic screaming here, this is not screamo. A) screamo usually sucks. This song doesn't suck, but that's too obvious. B) The screaming is not done in some monotone, pathetic attempt to convey emotion where talent is lacking. The emotion is there, and the wild abandon is balanced out with changes not only in pitch, but also in delivery. The background insertion of an attitude-laden "ok" further gives the listener a sense that this song may have been composed in a state of wild abandon and reaction. A personal favorite, "Throw Me Overboard," pushes the pop-envelope and gives Yardling even more dimension.

Immediately following, comes the only purely acoustic track, "Cashing In," coming off as a dysfunctional love song. Some of the latter songs on the record include "Japanese Glass." This is another one of those songs that departs a little from the rest of the album. "JG" is comprised of an odd combination of lyric and metaphor. In an interview with the band from early June 2007, Chris Demiglio explains the reference, "vicodin haircut":

-"There was this one night that I was really out of my mind and I was taking a lot of Vicodin and Xanax and other stuff, and I decided to just cut my hair. The song is about all these random snippets from all these different times in my life: just a big chaotic mess. That was one of the instances I wanted to put in there, talking about this ridiculous act of cutting your hair in front of the mirror just to see what it looks like."

While it's hard to get Chris to reveal the meaning of his lyrics (modesty, I think), from the explanation he provided, the song appears to be a mashed together commentary on self-destruction for lack of something better to do. However, two minutes into the song, it breaks into a short interlude that sounds eerily like the opening to Spacehog's "In The Meantime." After a few seconds, the second part of the song follows, which is slower than the first, with sweet but distorted piano and haunting vocals that make "JG" end sounding like a psychedelic nursery song.

Yardling is one of those special albums that through creativity, - Erin Rice