Mouthful Of Bees

Us folks at 'Scratchy Towers' pride ourselves in the thought that we're early adopters who have our finger on the pulse of the happening scenes, smug in the knowledge that we're breaking hot new bands that are on the cusp of making waves. We're midwives of music, if you like, delivering zeitgeist choon babies that will be nestling on the bosom of popular acclaim in the near future.

With this in mind, I bring to your attention Minneapolis natives Mouthful Of Bees with their album, The End, released in err oh um...the start of 2007 d'oh! Well, never mind, we might have missed the boat with this fresh faced indie four piece, but I still think they are worthy of a belated tip of the hat.

The sibling duo of guitarist Chris and Katelyn Farstad on drum duties started the band in 2004 and were then joined by Micky Alfano and Mark Ritsema from Battle Royale (n.b. I implore anyone who hasn't seen original Japanese movie of this moniker to track it down pronto) Chris has a mournful voice, comparable to the masterful David Byrne of Talking Heads fame, which is used to great effect on their stand out track 'I Saw A Golden Light' This song has a off kilter drum lick that reminded me of the bass sound on 'Hang Me Up To Dry' from Cold War Kids from their 2006 album 'Robbers and Cowards' I was trying trying to think of a suitable adjective for this vibe and came up with 'antsy' By this, I mean a beat which makes you wriggle unconventionally, rather than a sound that ruins picnics. The other track that makes me wriggle is 'The Now' which has a more regular lick, that owes something to a twangy soundtrack of a classic kid's cartoon from the seventies a la Wacky Races.

I look forward to this antsyhill mob dropping da bulletproof bomb with some new material!

Time to stop now, this lingo is getting more embarrassing than a politician attempting to curry favour and a good photo opportunity at an inner city youth development project; William Hague and baseball caps anyone?!

http://www.myspace.com/mouthfulofbees

http://www.afternoonrecords.com/mouthfulofbees.html

http://www.coldwarkids.com/

http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacky_Races