One of the opening bands for Pronto at RIBCO is Minneapolis' Pictures of Then, whose confident and polished And the Wicked Sea was released in June.
The unsigned band's second album, And the Wicked Sea seems a good match for All Is Golden.
The group's members called the recording process "honest," and by that
they mean both the way they communicated in crafting it and the way it
was recorded to be an accurate portrait of the band at this point in
time.
"If we couldn't pull it off live, then it wasn't going to make into a song," said singer/guitarist Casey Call.
Drummer Joe Call said the recording
represents a reaction to the "ridiculous harmonies and the 60 dubbed
guitars" of contemporary albums; the group's effort strives for a "more
pure approach to record-making.": "Let's document the band. Instead of
creating something that could never live outside of that album, it was
more or less a snapshot in time. ... This is an honest band who went
into the studio, and this is what they sounded like at that exact
moment."
A.V. Twin Cities
was enthusiastic about the results: "
Wicked Sea
flirts with glam rock and psychedelia, but builds its engaging sound on
a solid foundation of guitar-driven indie rock in the style of Modest
Mouse, though Pictures of Then lean more toward pop beauty and strummy
ballads than Isaac Brock's rough-edged rock."
The process affected the songwriting.
The band's members recognized that their tracking-live-in-the-same-room
approach meant they couldn't patch together a good song. "I think it
actually made recording more fun," said keyboardist Tim Greenwood,
"inasmuch as you had to actually preconceive and have a lot of
forethought about what your part was going to be, and make sure that it
actually stood up and was able to fill out a track."
Casey Call said the album's title
reflects both personal and worldwide turmoil, although the band
stressed that it's not a downer.
"We like to try to pepper in those pretty moments," Greenwood said.
"There's still something beautiful that
can be found," said Casey Call. The goal was to have "songs that
ultimately take on sort of a positive vibe come out of negative
frustration and experience."
Pronto will headline a show on
Friday, September 18, at RIBCO (1815 Second Avenue in Rock Island).
Pictures of Then and Jim the Mule open, and the show starts at 9 p.m.
Cover is $8.
