Eulogies preview

Eulogies
Schubas, Chicago
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007

I can’t help think singer-songwriter Peter Walker has backed his new band into a corner by picking Eulogies as a band name. Aside from upsetting countless, burgeoning metal bands, everything they do is going to be filtered through a spectrum of death.

This poses further problems because their self-titled Dangerbird Records debut isn’t literally about death — it just uses eulogies as a means of conveying regret to people who are presumably no longer part of Walker’s daily affairs. Arranged somewhat mournfully, Eulogies nonetheless has a power pop core working fitfully to regain what it had before things turned sour — though this sourness eventually carries the day. The gritty Cars/Nada Surf concoction “One Man” is torn between accepting defeat and begging forgiveness before blaming its heartbreaker for having unreasonable standards. “If I Knew You” finds an artful-emo strand (a la Joan Or Arc or early Promise Ring) as it tries to figure out what it did wrong, asking for lessons in civility.

The formula begins to lose power in the album’s final quarter, succumbing to crawling tempos and forced melodies (the hoo-hooing on “Blizzard Ape”). But in the larger scheme, Walker has effectively distilled how relationship losers frame their predicaments in the most dire light. To them, being slain in love is being slain in life. Let’s just hope Walker hasn’t killed his band’s chances by wounding them from the start.

Eulogies open for Film School and Land Of Talk.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly