Posture Coach

I think it was the fall of 2004 or the early winter of 2005 that Posture Coach was first introduced to me. There was a little self-made compilation of music for The Nouveaux Festival that featured their music. My friend Sam put it in the CD player in his car insisting that I take a listen. I obliged him. As the music played, I can't recall the track on the disk at that time, I was instantly intrigued by the music. I still wasn't sure what it was that my friend wanted me to glean from this in car listening session. I had virtually no opinions on the music I was listening to until he added this little piece of information that I didn't have prior. He said they were a local band.

"What!?" I was shocked and delightedly amused at this news. I never thought creativity of this avant-garde nature would ever creep out the strings and drums of any musician in Youngstown. Up until that point all the music that I personally had heard from any aspiring musician or band (with the exception of a very select few) in Youngstown was regurgitated music that Mtv, Cumulus and Clear Channel Radio had been feeding them almost intravenously for decades. If it wasn't that then they imitated the music played by the butt rock radio stations in the area who play the same Scorpion or Blue Oyster Cult songs over and over, incessantly.

Posture Coach seemingly, and for the better, missed out on all things butt-rock, Fred Durst and Dave Matthews. Instead they reached to the deeper and less popular areas for their inspirations. They reached down the least accessible hallmarks of rock past like that of The Violent Femmes and the musical compositions reminiscent to the sounds of The Tennessee Three, who backed Johnny Cash, and sparse overtones of the kind of musical disregard that made Nirvana revolutionary. I would have put money down that this band was from a much more culturally diverse college area like Cleveland, Detroit, NYC or something compairible, but they are from here and I found that refreshing and inspiring. There was finally a sign of hope for this little meager town.

That was 2004-ish. Flash forward to 2007 and you will see a much, much stronger Posture Coach than of the days past. With the May release of their debut CD "Give them Excess" they trudge right through Youngstown over turning the notions and presumptuous ideas of what it means to be creative and a rock band. This is in no way a loud rock album. It's more a moody and cohesive artistic collaboration between Kris Mills, Eric Booth, and Dennis Thomas.

Every song on this release is well crafted and thought through. I think the purposeful lo-fi approach to their musical recording and performance gives them their charm much in the way The White Stripes do. It reminds of listening to music when I was in high school before the over saturation of pop music and the ultra high, over productions of just about every "nu-rock/emo" band marketed directly to youth of American malls nationwide.

And it feels like the way real punk rock should feel. I don't mean to label them "punk rock" but prior to the horrific bands Blink 182 and Green Day where bands who were truly punk who sounded not a thing like the modern incarnations (ie, punk of the early 80's). Posture Coach's music is exactly as it should be. It's flawless. If this were on the radio it would be like casting pearls to the swine.

I highly recommend picking up "Give Them Excess".

*You can listen to the their track "After the Fog" from this release on the main pages audio player.

Posted by Abraham White on August 15, 2007 2:59 AM