Thursday, May 20, 2010
If you go
What: Hand Drawn Mountains with Panzer Talk
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: The Lemon Grove, 122 W. Federal Plaza, Youngstown
Tickets: $3; call (330) 301-0282
110 W. Federal St., Youngstown
By JOHN BENSON
No offense to Coldplay, but the Brit-pop act appears to have been the fork in the road for Pittsburgh-based band Hand Drawn Mountains which formed just a few years ago but already has undertaken quite a musical journey.
“We’re an indie rock band, and we get compared to a wide range of bands, honestly,” said singer Christopher Wagner.
“We’re influenced a lot by Arcade Fire, Pedro the Lion, The National and Sufjan Stevens. I mean, everybody has their reference points, so it just depends on who you’re talking to.
At a recent show somebody said we reminded them of Coldplay, and I don’t think any of us are really big fans of that band. We’ve had some weird ones, too. We’ve been compared to Bruce Springsteen, too.”
It’s when Wagner further discusses, or dissects, the Coldplay comparison that Hand Drawn Mountains’ evolution as a band becomes clearer.
Specifically the vocalist feels any obscure references to the band now stem from its previous sound heard on debut EP, “Old Fires.”
“To be frank, our EP sounds very different from what we’re doing now,” Wagner said.
“We had a complete sea change and said we want to go really in a different direction. We were doing sort of alt-country- folk-rock before and we decided to change. We decided early on that we love that people come out to enjoy the music but at the end of the day, we have to do this and have our own vision. Just sort of a balance between not caring what people think and caring what people think, if that makes sense.”
Making sense of its musical strengths is the band’s collective hope for its debut full-length effort, “Bare Branches,” which it plans to have out this fall.
In a nutshell, the act has left behind its Americana roots for a more plugged-in sound.
While the album isn’t finished, the band is already playing newer tunes that offer a peek to its future.
This includes the slow and moody “Youth is Wasted on the Young” and the fast-paced “Kids in Love.”
“Stylistically, they’re on opposite ends of where the album is at and what we’re going for as far as tempo and guitar sounds,” Wagner said.
“We don’t mind doing a lot of material that’s down tempo and stuff, as long as it achieves the mood we want. We just try to keep a good vibe and keep it interesting. So we definitely decided to plug in a lot more. We broke our lead guitarist down, and he got pedals. And we’re actually starting to mess around with loops and stuff like that.”
Wagner said Hand Drawn Mountain will be playing that new material at its Youngstown debut Saturday at The Lemon Grove.
“I’ve always heard good things about Youngstown,” Wagner said.
“We know Sam Goodwill fairly well, and they seem to like the area. So we’re hoping to play for the college or maybe even high-school crowd, just anybody who likes smart music by a band that cares about lyrics. We’re serious, and we’re there to entertain.”