The Mezzanine Owls ‘meet cute’ origins are the stuff of Season 3 Gilmore Girls lore - Dave Rygalski (Adam Brody as singer Jack Burnside) met girl drummer Lane Kim (Keiko Ageno as Pauline Mu) through a “Drummer Wanted” ad in LA Weekly. Rory Gilmore (bassist Dan Horne) would cover for them so they could band practice together without Lane’s mom interfering. That was before they knew Mrs. Kim (keyboardist/guitarist Jonathan Zeitlin) would be so supportive - insisting on driving them to their gigs at Sea Level (and later wanting to join the band.) Amy Sherman-Palladino owes Jack Burnside a writing credit.
While singer/songwriter Jack Burnside brings it like a young Stephen Malkmus (who remembered to take his Ritalin) the Mezzanine Owls throw down their post grunge, mid 90’s, lo-fi artsy alt. rock from the first fuzzy slide of a guitar and padded mallet percussions of opening track “Moving Ground” – so reminiscent of Semisonic’s wonderful 1996 album Great Divide – this is the Mezzanine Owls in their layered, melodic distortion element (“Luxury Spirits”, “Dark Too Early”, “Counting Backwards”.) Mezzanine Owls can do concise pop urgency too (“Light Bulb”, “We Don’t”) with the Clarity of Jimmy Eat World or “Always Love” Nada Surf.
There is a contrived bent to the gin blossomed (Slingshot Echoes is a lyric in “Luxury Spirits”), white belt wearing, vintage western shirt rocking, slender, pretty boys who could have been in (without product) a happier more coherent Jesus And Mary Chain or a calmer less shrill (with product) The Cure. Mezzanine Owls have an interesting oeuvre - though the use of military-style drumming in “Coyote”, “Graceless”, “Counting Backwards”, “Wake Up” and “Flashing Lights” smacks of Lane listening to “Sunday Bloody Sunday” too many times - from Summerland-style layered, warbling hallucinatory Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (“Coyote”), to the repetitive rhythmic Folk Implosion of “Graceless” and “Flashing Lights”, to the romanticism - in a Sebadoh Harmacy “Ocean” kind of way – of “Wake Up” and “A Draft”.
Produced by that kid from the R.E.M (Mezzanine Owls are fans) video "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" Andy LeMaster (Now It's Overhead, Bright Eyes, Azure Ray) at LeMaster’s (David Barbe, and Andy Baker’s) Chase Park Transduction in Athens, Ga., Mezzanine Owls’ self-released LP Slingshot Echoes is primed for Carnavas comparisons - “Sweet, Sweet” “Cherub Rock” that makes one want to part their hair in the middle, put on a baby tee and watch SNL again. |