The Paper Chase preview

The Paper Chase
Subterranean, Chicago
Friday, January 26, 2007

When there’s no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the earth . . . and The Paper Chase shall provide the soundtrack.

Now You Are One Of Us‘ — released last June — accompanying press materials claim (Kill Rock Stars) Dallas, Texas-based The Paper Chase created “the sonic equivalent to George A. Romero’s classic zombie films.” That’s a little misleading because it conjures thoughts of the gory, macabre lyricism and heavy-handed brutality better left to death metal. With their keyboards, cello, lap steel, and violin, The Paper Chase are very distant cousins of Cannibal Corpse. Plus, those bands can only dream of writing something as mind-fuckingly scary as The Paper Chase’s fourth full-length.

Though the titles may infer differently, songs like “We Know Where You Sleep,” “You Will Never Take Me Alive,” and “The House Is Alive And The House Is Hungry” aren’t about flesh eating creatures of the undead. But Paper Chase do explore the heart of Romero’s films: Fear and how it can tear apart a society. Though they never mention it, The Paper Chase have created the score to a George W. Bush-led country, one constantly reminded of the dangers of bombs and chickens and defined by a color-coded warning system. Songs like “What’s So Amazing About Grace” and “The Most Important Part Of Your Body” are defined by a nervous, nightmarish paranoia — a claustrophobic explosion of jagged guitar, pounding piano keys, grating strings, and twitching drum beats. But it’s frontman John Congleton’s panicked vocals — all done with an infectiously poppy manner — that make this record such an eerie affair, that make you feel like you’re never safe. Congleton, by the way, is Paper Chase’s brain stem — he sings, plays keyboard, does all the programming, plus wrote, produced, and engineered Now You Are One Of Us.

Haymarket Riot and I Need Sleep open.

— Trevor Fisher

Click here to download The Paper Chase’s “We Know Where You Sleep.”

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly