After 25 years of making music, Ian MacKaye, who may be best known for his days fronting Fugazi and Minor Threat (as well as running Dischord Records), continues to confound the expectations of listeners and critics alike. Ian's current project is a two-piece band The Evens, which consists of MacKaye and his longtime friend Amy Farina of the Warmers. Over the last three years the band has been fairly active. They contributed tracks to various compilations, played a surprise Coachella show and even played a song on the D.C.-based punk rock kids' show, Pancake Mountain, but the duo's self-titled album marks their full-length debut.
The band’s setup is reasonably sparse: Ian plays baritone guitar, Amy plays drums, and both sing and it's often together, with the result being some of the best vocal harmonies the punk rock community has ever heard. The group's stripped down sound and lack of overdubs definitely keeps things real and raw--would you expect anything else from these two? The opening track "Shelter Two" begins with Ian’s warm guitar work that gradually increases in volume and fullness before Amy adds in her steady backbeat to the track which goes on to include soothing folk influenced vocal harmonies. "Around The Corner," another one of the album's standout tracks, opens with Ian's gritty down stroke perfectly timed in between Amy's bass drum beats. Her complex hi-hat variations, prominent during the call and response lyrics, show off her deft drumming skills, giving the song a bit of a subtle bounce, and prove that MacKaye and Farina have minimalist punk down pat. Other disc highlights include “If It’s Water” which features a guitar intro that may remind many Dischord completists of "Hawks" off of El Guapo’s Fake French, and the closer “You Won’t Feel A Thing” is among the album’s most upbeat, poppy tracks. |