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 Band: Blacktop Mourning
Album: No Regrets
Website: www.blacktopmourning.com | MySpace
So what is there about chocolate that makes some of us crave it? Not all chocolate is alike though. Yes, it all starts out with the same ingredients: clever, thought-provoking lyrics, masterfully constructed; rich, vibrant rhythmic guitar strumming; intense, tremolo guitar played until it almost sounds twisted. Hey, wait a minute. Wasn't chocolate the topic of this discussion?
Well, that's how one might compare Blacktop Mourning. There is chocolate and then there is chocolate. Blacktop Mourning is the Cadbury Chocolate of pop/punk rock. This five-piece band from Chicago consists of Max Steger, an 18-year-old, lead-guitar prodigy, who caused the late, great ex-executive of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun to take notice; Joe Levand, guitarist, and more importantly, the vocally-driven force; Shawn, the rhythm guitarist whose powerful yet controlled performances on their latest release are nothing less than fabulous; Nate the bassist and Greg the drummer.
Together, these five guys make a sound that's so tight and so synchronized, you'd swear they were coached by a Thunderbirds' pilot. The songs are extremely complex with rhythm and lead guitars echoing one another. Shawn's rhythm guitar playing is a conglomeration of crashing natural chords which, on some songs like "Future Gone", borders along the line of pure, hard punk. While Shawn is crashing and thrashing, Max's lead guitar sounds nothing short of a violin solo crying Eric Clapton sentiments, while plucking to one of classical music's great symphonies.
The rhythms and melodies draw the listener in and hit deep in the chambers of the heart. Joe Levand's vocals teeter on the edge of pop-rock similar to the All-American Rejects. His range goes from rough to breathy with each song having its own hook.
Greg does his part with dynamic drumming. It's this kind of drumming that never leaves the listener bored, or able to predict the next beat.
So what does all of this have to do with a Cadbury Chocolate bar? It's simple. Just as Nestle and Hersey use cocoa, cream and butter to make their candy. Cadbury uses the same ingredients, but the difference is, for some reason, Cadbury Chocolate bars seem to just taste better. Well, the same goes for Blacktop Mourning. They play the same chords, use the same eight note scale, write the same sort of lyrics that pop/punk rock is notorious for whining over. It's just that in a genre of music that's already saturated with such multiple clones of sound, Blacktop Mourning manages to rise above.
It's not that they use different instruments, or do anything with their vocals that can be called original. They just do it better, and therein lies the difference. It's this differentiation from all the other MySpace rock bands, waiting to be discovered, that caught the attention of Counting Crows vocalist, Adam Duritz. Not only was he so impressed with this band that he signed them onto his new production company, Tyrannosaurus Records, he even sang on some of the tracks on this record. He signed them a little over a year ago and since then has had no regrets.
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