Gunbunny

Seattle's Gunbunny creates new and edgy Americana flavored post-punk pop songs that stick in your head like oatmeal on your ribs. With a second home in Portland, Oregon, this young band is moving quickly. Together just eleven months and with less than twenty-five live shows under their belt, Gunbunny have quickly found their musical voice. They put it on display on their debut, The White City EP, released in October of 2008.

The White City EP opens with The Knife, an edgy, post-surf guitar rock fueled song. The song is very vibrant and catchy and will get your feet moving. Never Wrong keeps listeners on their toes with a change of pace that's fueled by punk instincts in a wonderfully alt-pop setting. Left Coast is a more traditional rock arrangement built on jangly guitars and an introspective melancholy born of absence. Hidden is the gem of the album, with frenetic guitar work and a driving rhythm that won't let you go. Gunbunny seems to have a real touch for this sort of post-punk pop, infusing the rhythm and energy of punk into wonderfully hooky pop arrangements like it's nothing. Wreck ventures into a more Americana sound embellished with twangy guitars and a hint of vulnerability.

Gunbunny is a pleasant surprise. For a band so young (as a group) to have found their voice so quickly you start to think there's something special going on. Gunbunny covers enough musical ground here to avoid a distinct pigeonhole, but there's a definite punk work ethic and energy in this band, and there's a highly refined pop music sensibility that runs through their songwriting. It's a recipe for success that many bands dream of. The White City EP is a great introduction to Gunbunny, and is sure to leave you wanting more.

Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)
http://wildysworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/review-gunbunny-white-city-ep.html - Wildy's World

Gunbunny is that breath of fresh air that everyone has been gasping for. This Seattle-based quartet proves that having a minimalist style doesn’t have to sound generic or boring. In fact, its debut E.P. The White City presents colorful and emotive songs that are reflective of its malleable sound. Using a wide range of styles, the band molds its clean guitar sound into five separate tracks, each of which offers a distinct experience. “The Knife” is an ideal opener: with its dark edge and serious lyrics, Gunbunny proudly demonstrates its ability to deliver material with substance. The band switches things up on “Hidden,” a peppy number à la Vampire Weekend, before exiting the E.P. with the low-key “Wreck.” The White City gives an eloquent approach to some beautifully composed music—a sign that better things are yet to come from this new act.

-- Margot Buermann [February 2, 2009]
http://amplifiermagazine.com/reviews/cds/gunbunny_cd_ep.php - Amplifier Magazine

Relying on the classic four-piece set-up, familiar song structures, and simple production, you might think you can come into Gunbunny's debut EP The White City having heard it all before. But it's this same bare simplicity that brings attention to the band's adventurous songwriting: twisting bass lines, smart-alecky rhythms, unhinged vocals, and some wonderfully warped understanding of how to put it all together.

"Never Wrong" has the dangerous strut and taunting lyrical sparseness that makes me wonder as I listen if there's a murder at the end of the song. Low, rattling drums play the tense heartbeat of a runaway. Dizzying guitar and bass lines stalk with mischief like a matador's, or a mobster's. Searching for the end of the melody's restless tension, I realize that I'm the victim in its sights. Just past its halfway point, the song throws away the words and threatens me with the sonic equivalent of a stare eye-to-eye. For a minute and a half, it pushes me against the wall of an aural alley, intensifying and escalating, raising and raising its weapons. Just when the suspense hits a height and I can't see past the knife, the band resets completely. The next track follows as a laid-back, earthy nod to Wilco ("Left Coast"). It's a maniacal and yet seamless switch, and the looseness of "Left Coast" and jaunty sound of the subsequent "Hidden" even accentuate the shadows of the tracks before them.

The White City drives with the rambunctious attitude and twitchy, traveling rhythms you'd expect from, say, Wolf Parade, but colored with its own occasional twang. Every song on this album pulls complicated writing from a stripped sound in a way that's unsettled, unsensible, and yet completely, rightfully convincing. With cases for contradiction that not only boast the rogue young Seattle band's range but prove their confident, artful approach, the short EP is no doubt a promising beginning for a band that's sure to scheme up something more.

http://www.theovercast.net/reviews/gunbunny-thewhitecity.shtml - Pauline Diaz - www.theovercast.net