Pompeii reviewed
Pompeii
Assembly
(Eyeball)
Austin’s Pompeii may have accidentally chosen the perfect name.
The Italian city of Pompeii — a UNESCO world-heritage site, I’ll have you know — was legendarily buried in a river of lava from Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The village dwellers were immediately entombed having been caught so off guard (despite this happening to ancestors at least three times prior) they were preserved doing whatever it was they were doing when the molten sea came. Pompeii the band are like a snapshot of the current state of indie adult contemporary: gentle, keen for dramatic strings, and so caught up in “the sound” they fail to realize what’s going on around them. Whether the cooed, e-bowed intro to “Miracle Mile” or the rising Death Cabisms of “Stories And Charts,” the band faithfully recreate the flavor they fancy (that which owns the “O.C.” audience) without adding much of themselves to the mix. Vocalist Dean Stafford throws around cutesy lines with a backpack of notebook ramblings to spare, but he’s never impressive enough to keep Assembly from being deposited deeply beneath history’s surface.
— Kevin Keegan
Appearing: October 29th at Beat Kitchen in Chicago.
Click here to download “Catalogue.”
