Evangelicals preview

Evangelicals
Schubas, Chicago
Friday, March 7, 2008

Not long ago, I was in a friend’s car when he popped in Steve Vai’s 1990 guitar opus, Passion & Warfare. The opening “Star-Spangled Banner”-esque harmonies caused me to think, “No one does it like this anymore.” Then I sat down with Evangelicals’ second album, The Evening Descends (Dead Oceans). There were those guitars again.

Of course, Evangelicals have about as much in common with Vai as The Shins do with Paul Gilbert. But the snippet, which soon disappears into neo-Queen opera vocals over the nylon pluck of a Madridista, is but one of thousands of avenues this Oklahoman quartet use to get their story across. In fact, two minutes later the guitar part gets reprocessed into a glitchy cut up before resurfacing — again — intact, two songs later.

And yet paying too much attention to such things completely ignores the richness of the rest of The Evening Descends. Their pairing with downstate’s Headlights on this tour isn’t much of a stretch — the two share very similar indie pop roots. The difference is a sort of effortless psychedelia weaned on 2001 and Buck Rogers as much as the bottomless reverb of My Morning Jacket. That said, experiments tend to get away from the record. My Vai-ish guitars, you find yourself paying more attention to sounds than songs. Often Evangelicals rise over the horizon with a spellbinding turn (“Stoned Again,” “Paperback Suicide”), but the real fun is hearing how they’ve Scotch taped “Bellawood” together and try to keep it in place as it streaks through the cosmos.

Headlights headline; Audrye Sessions open.

— Steve Forstneger

Click here to download “Skeleton Man.”

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly