There's a big snake in your back yard. Your house is fragile and the wind is harsh. Times are changing too fast and you might not know where you are tomorrow. In fact, you may already be living in a very different world than the one you remember waking up in yesterday.
Oakland, California’s Collisionville -- guitarist/vocalist Stephen Pride, drummer Ben Adrian, and bassist Conor Thompson -- are dealing with these cracked times by cranking out tunes reminiscent of ‘80s & ‘90s staples like The Pixies, The Replacements, or the whole SST camp -- only in a post-grunge world, broken up by eerie, fatalistic strains of old blues and country.
The band’s second full-length, I Spied a Spider (the title comes from a lyric in the song "Dark Road Blues" by the Willie Lofton Trio, recorded in 1935), is out now on Berkeley, CA's Booplet Records. While 2005’s Hotter Heads Prevail indulged frontman Pride’s post-punk leanings, Spider draws heavily on other influences, infusing Collisionville’s already-rollicking sideshow with Americana twang, and giving Pride a chance to display his ample banjo chops.
The album’s packed with confessionals that wryly lay out good times and bad -- hell, mostly bad. The people in these songs have no power to affect things politically, personally, internally. Still, Pride’s dour lyrics are so riddled with humor they can’t quite mask the secret optimist. "You still got nine good fingers / There's a guy outside who'd kill for your job / His family's eatin' shit for dinner" spits Pride on the plodding rocker "Keep The Sweatshops Blazin’." "Please Spare the Life of Your Cocaine Dealer" marries flip lyrics fitting of its title with a hillbilly-via-Brit-Invasion shuffle. And what of that twang? "Another Cold Shoulder" is a Gram Parsons-style barnburner, and "Sleeping in a Tree" rattles off plenty of mutant Neil Young swagger.
And so the story takes another turn. Collisionville have been measuring their frustrations in decibels, and I Spied a Spider is the byproduct. They're not going down this dark road by themselves.
"Northern California's Collisionville fuses a loud, post-punk sound with down-home Americana to create sardonically sincere
songs that are well put together and streaked with the humor that eludes more self-serious bands." Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired Magazine...more
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