Show Review: The Huguenots, Album Release Party

Local 506, Chapel Hill
April 8, 2011

Stealing through the energy field of razor sharp smiles and angled bodies that made up the Local 506 bar room in the space between a cliff hanger opening set by The Tomahawks and the highly anticipated album release set by The Huguenots, I shuttered my camera rapidly catching revelers in high action. I took the door and and rounded the corner with my camera shouldered catching a half dozen smoke breakers off guard. Antagonizing a few group shots and handing out matches I swapped a few stories...only one of which was based on fact. That is...I'd seen The Huguenots perform on two occasions, once as an opener for The Love Language at Gerrard Hall hall on UNC campus and again as the opener for both Aminal and Ther Mercators at Motorco in Durham. These as well as many other times I'd seen them billed they were "also playing" ...a welcomed attraction for a night of local indy pop, but not quite the headliner. A hyped crowd awaiting their performance just in side the door hinted that The Huguenots will likely have their name in the bolder print at the top of many show posters in the near future.

I was interrupted just a few dramatic versus into a rant-observation in the direction of Tomahawks keyboard player Jeff Crawford about the paradoxical nature of "sounds like The Beatles" beatings and the degree of talent that it actually requires to "sound like The Beatles." About then the chiming bars of The Huguenots first song drifted from the open door. Ears perked up and then a loud voice from the group announced, "oh man, that's my jam!" ...The Huguenots were opening the set with the single worthy "I Would Say" and the out siders stamped cigs and rushed the door creating a slip stream clear to the front of the stage room.

I caught the wave and washed right to stage right where my shutter found a dazzling light show animating The Huguenots in a primal spectrum of darkened hues...emergency melt-down red, alien invasion green, dark side of the moon blue...for the attentionaly challenged this was better than methylphenidate, but for the music appreciative, it was just something interesting to accompany the already great sound. This was their album's release, a work they have been at for over four years and they grabbed the audience with it and pulled them through a high voltage set reproducing their time in the studio. Self titled The Huguenots is at its core, a fun album. Songs are written with memorable pop hooks in mind and rock instruments in hand. The runaway favorite "I Would Say" is a defining pop gem that introduces The Huguenots as a band capable of enrapturing their audience with dreamy arrangements, clever come-ons, and gleaming harmonies that shine through the mix with British age feel. This is an album offering dynamics well beyond the typical four-piece rock outfit and its arriving just in time for a summer season of fun on the local rock circuit. Keep and eye open for show posters with a scribed "The Huguenots" in bold at the top and go let them sharpen your smile. --Carrboro Ninja

The Huguenots







The Tomahawks



Missy Thangs, Matt, Lenny Kravitz



party supplies


DJ Craig Powell,
Patrick Phelan, Spike


sharpened and angled


caught off guard

left to right Jeff Crawford, Molly Ferguson, James Wallace, Mark Connor

Track Review: The Huguenots "I Would Say"

If the bell like chiming of The Huguenots clean cut guitar strokes and bouncy vintage wrapped vocals aloft in "I Would Say" are chief to the look and feel of their ready and approaching self titled LP then the Spring is about to kick off with a fun album. "I Would Say" puts on a 1950's doo-wop-esque smile and swings for three and a half minutes of smart indie-pop guitar licks. Layers ranging from acoustic guitar to stomp-box drive give the track depths of creativity and maintain the flow of interest in and out of the songs changes as Sam Logan's toneful vocals turn the title chorus into a memorable hook.

We find out more on what this album is made of this Friday as The Huguenots is released on stage at The Local 506 in Chapel Hill. Always-favored-to-win The Tomahawks open. 10 PM, $6. --Carrboro Ninja

Album Review: The Tomahawks - Cut Loose

I'll make the argument that The Strokes are the reason I just listened to Cut Loose by Chapel Hill's The Tomahawks, stay with me... In 2001 I was the guy who would get a late night call from friends asking to solve an argument on who is singing the song currently blasting on the speakers at the bar that they were getting wasted at. "That's Thin Lizzy," and the response in the receiver would sound like a a truck load of money was just dropped on a crowd. Yes, I was a classic rock junkie, completely addicted to gas station compilations and obscure dollar-album record store buys and had comfortably given up on any new rock being made to rival the glory of the seventies, a stubbornness that resulted in missing out on the root of indy in the nineties. But then came Is This It with its visceral guitar work and emotionally drenched lyrics to shake me out of the classic rock cradle and drop head first into a world of indy rock. Now I'll bring it full circle. A few years later on the road back from Music Midtown our van load of exhausted festival trippers collectively decided that if we were game for jetting all the way to Atlanta for indy, we should be taking in the local fare on a regular basis too. Over the course of the next few years I would create yet another polarizing addiction, this time for local rock. Voila...The Strokes got me to indy, indy got me to local, local got me to The Tomahawks.

A stretch yes indeed but this story held relevance for me because in listening to Cut Loose I found a unique parallel in the projections of The Tomahawks front man Nick Jaeger and one of the most defining members of the Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr. I'm not going to draw a similarity in sound, I am going to cite a commonality in the paths they have both walked however. Both lent their skill as lead guitarist for brilliant establishments prior to their solo work, Hammond Jr of course The Strokes, Jaeger the locally famous MAX Indian. And each were able to take the best parts of their formers and make something truly brilliant of their own. In 06' when The Strokes were talking break-up I was down and out until the release of Yours to Keep, Hammond Jr's first solo album. Like a shot with a diamond bullet right through the forehead I suddenly realized what about The Strokes that pulled me so hard, it was Hammond Jr's guitar arrangements which were so dazzling on his solo work that I remarked "this is the missing Strokes album." My first listens to Cut Loose with its rollicking back beat and bouncy spirit hit me just as precisely. Instantly feeling the same luster and energy present in MAX Indian, it was like re-articulating my memory and associating Jaeger more closely with the genes that made his former so wonderful.

Found in Cut Loose are nostalgia evoking AM radio appointments that can carry your thoughts between surf rock and southern hospitality in the same track. Bouncy chompy piano keys and drifting harmonies hurry to announce the album as upbeat and winsome while sure footed electric guitar work firmly label it rock. Jaeger being a principal architect of fret board arrangement and design, there is no shortage of licks and hitches, more so like a life savings worth poured out and evenly shaken across the album falling into every crack and crevice in the rhythm where a ditty could stick. Reminding me of the softer side of Ween, and the best sides of Wilco, the vocal character on Cut Loose is a smooth respiring candor intent on accounting for an unraveling story of affection which uses all ten tracks to tell, but any given one of them to feel. Hammond Jr. made a momentary departure from comfortable establishment to create something unique and personal, Cut Loose finds our own Nick Jaeger answering the same call with the same passion. --Carrboro Ninja


post script

The Tomahawks release Cut Loose with a performance at Local 506 in their home town Chapel Hill today October 15th, 2010. Show time is 9:30 PM and tickets are seven dollars at the door. Floating Action and Josh Moore open.


Album Art