Missing Sibling

I got to spend some time on my trek down to SXSW this year putzing around the great state of Texas, bringing home more than just an embarrassing sunburn. In that time I was able to actually look around and explore rather than only bop furiously from one showcase to another. Austin isn’t the end-all be-all oasis of exclusive musical excellence as evidenced by noise-pop rockers Missing Sibling who hail from North Texas.

Their latest single, “Commiserate,” strikes immediately out of the gate with fluid fuzzed out guitars riding a strong rhythm. The set base then begins to steadily evolve as Missing Sibling up the vocal harmonies and then explode towards a fiery finish. I’m hoping that my brain didn’t make this association simply because it rhymes, but the track evokes a louder, late era Sonic Youth and their song “Incinerate” in particular.

Stream Missing Sibling’s “Commiserate” below and look for the EP of the same name which arrives on May 26 via cassette on Wiener Records and digital download. - Speak Into My Good Eye

Fort Worth noise-pop ensemble Missing Sibling has undergone some changes since its last EP, 2014’s Spies. Most prominent is the addition of two members — Kevin and Stephanie Buchanan, of Diabolical Machines fame — and it’s a testament to their talent, as well as that of Drew Gabbert, Josh Hoover and Todd Walker, that the band doesn’t seem to miss a step on these six fuzzed-out gems. Highlights abound on Commiserate — Equal Strength is a stunner, while the mid-tempo Beg and Borrow evokes a less grumpy Pixies — leaving you wanting more of this new, supersize Sibling. Missing Sibling performs at Denton’s Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios on May 29, and at an in-store at Fort Worth’s Dreamy Life Records on May 31. - DFW.com

Deeply satisfying and insistently smart yet emotional, Missing Sibling's Commiserate sounds like a record that would fit in nicely with an elite group of albums such as, the Pixie's Doolittle or Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation. Combining a noise rock element with countless hook-laden melodies, Missing Sibling clearly put a lot of thought into this EP and excelled at creating something meaningful and very enjoyable at the same time. Adding two members of The Diabolical Machines to the line-up is just the cherry on top of this stunning alternative rock EP. - Power pop Gumdrop

Anyone who gives a listen to Commiserate, the infectious new EP from noise-pop practitioners Missing Sibling, is likely to hear echoes of bands like Guided By Voices and Camera Obscura, specialists in warm vocal harmonies riding atop loud, squirrelly guitars and a propulsive rhythm section, with some chordal dissonance thrown in for good measure. But Missing Sibling frontman and guitarist Drew Gabbert, a longtime member of the beloved Fate Lions, said the inspirations for Missing Sibling are less obvious than people might think.

When he first formed the band with bassist and backup vocalist Todd Walker in 2012, Gabbert said he did not really have “specific musical influences in mind.”

All he knew they wanted were harmony vocals and dense guitars.

“If there’s one major inspiration for the band, it’s been [the late painter] Jean-Michel Basquiat,” Gabbert said. “All the time when I’m working on songs, I’m thinking in terms of colors. When you look at a Basquiat painting, there’s something in focus right up front, and then there’s some stuff that’s smeared and layered in the background. You have to dig into both at the same time to see the whole painting.”

That’s actually a pretty good description of the simple yet multi-layered tunes on Commiserate, whose fiery sound is completed by Calhoun drummer Josh Hoover and two members of The Diabolical Machines: guitarist Stephanie Buchanan and keyboardist (and husband) Kevin Buchanan. On tunes like “Beg and Borrow” and “Time Flows Away,” Gabbert and Walker’s commingled boyish vocals grab the spotlight. At first. Then your attention is drawn toward the runaway percussion and the playful way they interact with some discordant piano or guitar line. While full of hooks, the songs on Commiserate pull you in a little deeper by making you think of the ways the musical parts do and don’t fit together. They make for a more intellectually interactive experience than your typical garage-inspired pop-rock platter.

The Buchanans joined the band last year, after their band played a gig with Gabbert and company. The rapport was obvious and instant, Gabbert said. He and Walker had been looking for a couple of other musicians to fill out the sound, to make it more layered and dynamic. The need for new players rose organically from the writing process for Commiserate.

“I started writing the record on a piano,” Gabbert said. “And then I wrote parts for a second guitar. [Hoover] and [Walker] and I decided that they were too important to leave out of the live shows we’d be doing. I passed the parts along to [the Buchanans] to learn, and they were like, ‘Great.’ It’s a rare thing when you have all five members of a band on the same creative page.”

Indeed, although the members have other musical projects on their plates, all five of them have designated Missing Sibling as their top creative priority for the foreseeable future. They’ll not only be playing multiple North Texas gigs to promote the May 26 release of Commiserate. They also will be doing a little bit of state and regional touring. To that end, the band recently bought a van. While Gabbert was checking online to see what kind of wheels other Fort Worth bands had purchased for touring, he realized that almost every group had given their vehicle a name. After some deliberation, Stephanie came up with “Vancent Price.”

It’s particularly apt, Gabbert said, especially if you look inside.

“The interior is like a bordello-red color,” Gabbert said with a chuckle. “I mean, like a rich blood-red color. It looks like you should be sipping wine and wearing a smoking jacket while you’re inside.” - Fort Worth Weekly

Fort Worth’s Missing Sibling will be playing on a nice little bill this Saturday at Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton. Sibling, as I’m going to call them, will be opening for Denton’s The Hope Trust and Dallas’ Salim Nourallah and The Travoltas, and I’d recommend you arrive on time to catch the trio’s set. Whether you have or haven’t heard of Missing Sibling, you’ve likely heard a few of the names that round out its lineup. With Fate Lions’ Drew Gabbert (vocals/guitar) and Todd Walker (vocals/bass), along with Telegraph Canyon and The Apache 5's Austin Green playing drums on their new EP, Pick A Family, the combination has created quite the fun listen. Live, drummer Johnny Bell will be joining the band and show-goers can expect a noisy, but very melodic rock-pop sound.

When I first hit play on the first track of the EP, “Keep Strong Boy”, I honestly expected loud voices to eventually layer over catchy drum beats and fuzzy guitar riffs. But, once the relaxed and careful vocals filled the tune, it made perfect sense. And, just because I say “relaxed and careful vocals” doesn’t mean that there isn’t power behind them – there is, it’s just not the all-over-the-place style sometimes associated with the noise pop genre the band’s sound has been frequently compared to. The band has certainly found the correct balance between the “innocent entity” and “chaotic surroundings” of their music, as Gabbert has described. Through to the end of the EP and the last note of “Piercing Teal”, listeners will definitely find themselves moving, be it joyful toe-tapping and head-bobbing, or maybe even a little dancing.

Prior to getting started on the recording of the EP, Gabbert says that he visited voodoo queen, Marie Laveau’s tomb in New Orleans, although not being a believer in anything of the sort, and asked for her blessing over the new project. Be it that she genuinely helped the recording process or that the EP’s outcome was a “happy accident”, the band considers her a central influence on Pick A Family. - Megan Radke

Missing Sibling is a Texas-based indie / noise pop outfit with an added element of pure pop sensibilities that give off a whiff of – nobody has ever typed this before but sure fuck it – Sleater-Kinney meets Bruce Hornsby. Seriously! - Deadly Music

Fort Worth quintet Missing Sibling — Drew Gabbert, Steph Buchanan, Todd Walker, Kevin Buchanan and Josh Hoover — makes a rambunctious, infectious debut on Idol Records, attacking the 10 tracks on its self-titled debut with its customary brio.

Keyboards whirl around gleaming, gnashing guitars and crashing percussion, lending tracks like Don’t Even Try and Mary’s Rashers a sense of whimsy amid the bite. Crafting power-pop as sleek and cerebral as this is something of a local rarity, making Missing Sibling all the more essential.

The music being made on Missing Sibling doesn’t sound like much else in North Texas, and we are all the richer for that. Missing Sibling performs Friday at Dallas’ the Underpass. - Dfw.com