crowtango

I guess I really shouldn’t call this a monthly music review since the last one was many moons ago, but lets press on. I stumbled across a band this month that I enjoy enough to write about, and that’s saying something. The lucky band is LITE.

LITE are an instrumental quartet from Tokyo, Japan that formed back in 2003. This band seems to have wrapped up everything I love about post and/or math-rock in one ten song album, and named it ‘Filmlet‘. These guys pull off some finger numbing riffs then break it done into very catchy if not soothing melodies. There is a lot of strummy guitar work that builds intensity while they play off each other. Overall this album makes me move when I’m listening to it, and that’s all I can ask for.

The only thing that I think is a tad under par about this album would be the sound of the drums on occasion. I don’t think the drums sound bad, it’s just that the guitars sound so much better. At times the drums just sound tinny and out of place, lacking the ambiance of the surrounding melody. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part the drums sound fine, it’s just at some points they take on a odd tone.

Something of note, for fans of such great bands as firehose and jane’s addiction, LITE recorded a split album with Funanori in February 2007. Funanori, is a new project by Kaori 505 Tsuchida (The Go! Team), Mike Watt (firehose, minutemen, the stooges) and Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction, Banyan). Unfortunately for me I found out this split– ‘A Tiny Twofer’–was available at eMusic, only after I had already purchased it from Amazon.

Play ‘Filmlet’ (Mac, PC)