There are swaths of music history I know nothing about, particularly: REM. I've never sat down and listened to REM, and while I am sure that I one day will, I have no intention of doing it now. I only bring up REM because both the positive reviews of this album on Amazon compare them to REM so I might as well go ahead and quote them and say: This band is like REM mixed with The Byrds.

To me: they're like a softer, melodic The Black Angels, minus all the shoegaze drone, with bit of a Band of Horses vibe thrown in for good measure.

Tulsa's whole album, I Was Submerged, is steeped in an expansive reverb-assisted swirl of sound, but there's one thing that pulls you through the whole album: highly melodic guitar line, which maintains a similar tone across the whole album. It's most apparent on the 85% instrumental track I Feel Great, which I was posting here, which noodles it's way through a contentedly happy guitar riff before breaking into a brief vocal. It's all very relaxing.

On Shaker the guitar is relaxed, like a bunch of guys playing soccer on a mild day. On this song, Mass, the guitar sings, wails, and cries (and you should most definitely turn it up) and eventually mimics the vocal so well that I could be convinced that a well played guitar could very easily replace a vocalist (something that seems inherently wrong to me but damn). Rafter is a Saturday morning song, the kind that carries you home after a late night. #2, the one song on the record with a mood that's some distance from "mellow", is sinister and pushing, with a powerful chorus hook and a bassy distorted guitar underlying the whole thing.

I discovered this album by hearing Rafter on the Park the Van label sampler on Amazon MP3 which you can download for free, natrulich.

I went to a rave last night in San Bernandino and ended up standing in line for two hours, hardly moving, with a group of friends, before we gave up and left. It was a pretty metal Friday night, if you know what I mean. An hour to drive there, two hours to wait, an hour to drive back. Fuck. Yeah.

I'm going to Lake Arrowhead today to freeze my balls off. Have a good one!

P.S. Yesterday I posted one of my favoritest bands ever and it was the lowest traffic day to the site ever! That's a bummer. Here's a single tear: <)

Aaaaanddd...

Here's another to more fully express my true discontent: <)