September 7, 2006

• [...]

  After a break to soothe our ears from the assault that was the Rangers, The Neighborhood produced a set of extremely talented indie-pop. That’s not to say that they didn’t rock or that they weren’t loud- if anyone’s ears weren’t ringing by the end of the first set, they were definitely ringing by the end of the Neighborhood’s first song. Featuring a very guitar-centric sound, the 3-piece ripped through a set of hummable pop tunes that would’ve been even better if we could’ve heard more of the vocals. In the whole guitar centricity of the set, the vocals oftentimes got lost in translation. The best few songs were the ones were the guitar was set down in favor of a keyboard, an acoustic, or a bass/drums feature, as the unique tone to the vocals had more chance to shine.

  
  The drummer and the bassist are to be commended- the bassist kept the sound moving with highly melodic lines while the drummer used a lot of unusual effects (electronic drumming, drumming on a guitar) to augment his usual drumming style. The Neighborhood’s pop-rock did have an artsy bent to it- they introduced their set with a five-minute sound collage that really didn’t have much melody but provided lots of interesting rhythms and sounds. The well-chosen covers of “Pepper” by the Butthole Surfers and “Another Brick in the Wall” were also indicators of some artsy background. The former cover was an entrancing song- they played it with a confidence and swagger that gave life to the sordid lyrics.

  [...]

  http://www.independentclauses.com/

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