Freak Scene #114: Aaron Noble's 'Arising & Passing Away'
Plus, an incredibly catchy song from New Haven's Post-Cupid
This week in Freak Scene, we hear from Amherst alt-rocker Aaron Noble, and encounter a super-catchy song off the latest release from New Haven’s Post-Cupid.
There’s been a resurgence in ’90s-style alt-rock over the past few years, and Aaron Noble is right there in the thick of it. The Amherst musician’s latest album, Arising & Passing Away, embraces the big, brooding guitars and minor-key vocal style that became prominent for a spell between the end of Nirvana and the garage-rock revival of the early aughts.
These nine songs are well thought-out and tightly wound, for which Noble deserves credit: he played guitar on all of them, and percussion, bass and drums on five, with help from bassist John Griffin and drummer Ryan Severin on the other four. Griffin also contributes vocals with Julia Sabbagh, and Lucas Solorzano traded guitar solos with Noble on “Surfacing.” That track rumbles through shifting time signatures while superheated squiggles of guitar circle around Noble’s voice, and the sensation is at once volatile and dour.
That’s a common thread connecting these songs, which wrestle with heavy emotions. On opener “Spiraling,” an upward surge of guitars contrasts with a downward emotional trajectory as Noble’s narrator strives not to get trapped “in the wreckage of my mind.” Later, the protagonist on “Backstage Mirrors” hides his true self behind a cloud of guitars that whirl like a cyclone of knives. “Safe” is slow and coiled, with trebly guitar lines stabbing through a gloomy, atmospheric arrangement, while “Heart Pulse” starts with a similar sensibility before finding a thread of optimism and unclenching in a bloom of guitars. Still, every silver lining has a cloud: “Heart pulse was light in the darkest blues,” Noble sings. “Heart pulse meant I wasn’t over you.”
Noble closes Arising & Passing Away with the title track, which is also one of the stronger numbers here. Guitars surge up between his vocals, leading to a ferocious solo break, before Noble brings the song — and the album — home with a distant vision of the peace that has been so elusive over the previous 39 minutes.
Post-Cupid Offers Song of the Year Candidate on New EP
There’s no telling when or where you’ll come across a near-perfect pop song, which is part of the fun of it: that thrill of discovery, the impulse to listen repeatedly, the hook that gets stuck in your head. Post-Cupid delivers with “Here’s to the Future,” a track from the recent EP You Had a Song You Wrote.
Post-Cupid is the project of New Haven musician Kevin O’Brien, who has been performing the tracks on You Had a Song You Wrote onstage for years, “from open mics to small musical gatherings and beyond,” as he wrote on Bandcamp. It shows: the songs feel developed and lived in. O’Brien writes with a breadth of style: “Back + Forth (revisted)” is spare, with chiming guitars and a subtle bassline beneath O’Brien’s clear voice. “A Starling Sets on a Parched Earth” has a fuller sound, with piano and understated guitar floating through layers of busy percussion.
As listenable as both tracks are, “Here’s to the Future” is the centerpiece of this brief outing. Co-written with Michael “Flash” Gordon, it’s a structural gem, which is a nerdy thing to say, but the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-BIG SWEEPING BRIDGE-chorus format has endured for a reason. The song is also supremely catchy, in a power-pop/emo kind of way. A chugging acoustic guitar intro quickly opens into a verse at once taut and airy, with plenty of space for O’Brien’s vocals. He’s conversational on the first verse, before ramping up the intensity on the second, after a punchy, hooky chorus with a towering stack of layered vocals. It’s pop (-rock) at it’s finest, and I hope there’s a lot more where this song came from.
Upcoming Concerts
These are new shows announced this week. The full concert calendar is available here for paid subscribers.
Perennial open for the political punk group Downtown Boys June 24 at Holyoke Media, two days before the Rhode Island/New York band’s new album Public Luxury comes out (tickets).
Flo Fest, a festival planned for Sept. 19 in Florence, hosts a family-friendly fundraiser May 9 at JJ's Tavern, with Western Mass Karaoke Machine, Friends of Flo playing acoustic covers of '90s songs and the Kill Phill, "a dad band with two moms" (tickets).
Country singer Dylan Scott performs June 4 at Tree House Brewery in South Deerfield (tickets).
J Mascis kicks off this year's Green River Festival with a performance June 18 at the Iron Horse in Northampton (tickets). Also at the Iron Horse: Karla Bonoff July 31 (tickets) and jazz vocalists Samirah Evans & Wanda Houston Aug. 15 (tickets).
Aaron Lee Tasjan plays Nov. 15 at the Parlor Room in Northampton (tickets).
Austin, Texas, indie-rockers West 22nd play July 24 at the Drake in Amherst (tickets).
The Shea Theater Arts Center hosts Ukrainian folk quartet DakhaBrakha Aug. 1 (tickets).
The Marigold Theater in Easthampton presents Feminine Aggression, Fugue State, Sleep Destroyer and Cliffrose May 13 (tickets) and old-school bluesman Ottomatic Slim & the Deadly Sins June 20 (tickets).
Infinity Music Hall in Hartford features Patty Griffin July 26 (tickets) and Five for Fighting Oct. 4 (tickets), while Norfolk brings in Chris Knight Sept. 13 (tickets)
College Street Music Hall in New Haven hosts Rock of the '80s Aug. 22, with China Crisis, Big Country, the Vapors and Icicle Works (tickets).
The Space Ballroom in Hamden hosts Royal Thunder with Coma Hole July 17 (tickets).
Anti-competitive monopoly Live Nation presents Bob Dylan wth Jimmie Vaughan July 19 at Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater in Bridgeport (tickets).
That’s it for now. Thank you for reading! Previous issues are available in the online archive. Freak Scene is free, but donations help make this happen and are gratefully accepted. If you have the means, please consider a paid subscription!
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