Band glad to return to Youngstown venue

The group's recent album isn't as loud as its 2000 one.
By JOHN BENSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Similar to a moth circling around a bright light in the middle of the night, affirmation-deficit up-and-coming rock bands sooner than later return to those venues where the band members felt their music actually reached an audience.
This is the case with New Jersey act Spider Rockets, which is returning to Youngstown on Friday for another Cedars Lounge gig.
"I just sensed that people love rock in Youngstown," said singer Helena Cos, calling from Hazlet, N.J. "There was just a lot of support for rock, and it was a good vibe. If you give us a town where you can tell people like their music loud, that's where we end up and that's where we end up doing pretty well."
For all intents and purposes, the popularity contest that is the music industry has taken the Garden State quartet around the nation with pockets of success developing over the past few years. Not only have the band's albums, including its most recent effort "Ever After," garnered increased attention, but the act's aggressive sound is definitely en vogue with the rock radio crowd.
Cos cites the band's influences as ranging from Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Guns N' Roses to Nirvana, Godsmack and even Stevie Ray Vaughan. But in the end, she believes the group is creating its own brand of noise.
Comparing albums
"I hate the word experimental, but it's just kind of going in a different direction," Cos said. "Our 2000 album 'Flipped Off' was really like loud and aggressive, which was awesome, while our new one is a little less metal based. There's more nuances perhaps because we experimented and messed around with different things and because there's just so much stuff."
She added, "It's like with music you play around with sounds. Those kinds of things are part of the art form. You mess around with different things and see what kind of moves you or not."
What's moving Cos right now is Spider Rockets' new material, which she said "goes everywhere from haunting vocals and witchy to b----- and sometimes grating or seductive with metal influences and dark, quirky elements."
The one thing people definitely hear is a female-fronted band, which unfortunately in the new millennium is still an anomaly on the rock scene. While she admits it may be a hurdle for new fans to overcome, Cos remains focused.
"I don't really dwell on it," Cos said. "I love doing what I'm doing, and I guess our music of choice happens to be hard rock or loud rock, whatever subgenre people tend to call it now. It's just a labor of love, and it happens to be this. I don't think about how many women or how many men or who else happens to be doing it. I'm just concentrating on what we're doing."