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Review:
By Jonah Flicker
I love cold deli-style salads. No barbecue is
really complete without them, especially if your meat consumption is of
a vicarious
nature, limited to poking around in your friend’s
pork belly sandwich or sneaking a disgusted peek at the tongue in your
local
butcher’s shop. I feel that whatever I am missing
at barbecues by not eating charred hamburgers or bloated hot dogs is more
than compensated for by such treats as cold curried pasta or dill infused
potato salad. The Bottom of the Hill offers such fare, along with the meat,
every Sunday afternoon. The special on the menu this Sunday was Unified
Theory, a tight band that would seem more at home in the early 90s than
in our post-electronica influenced era of rock.
"Goodnight to the rock and roll era..." mourned Steve Malkmus of Pavement on their funeral march, "Fillmore Jive," in 1994. And why should anyone have assumed otherwise? After the heyday of the grunge and post-grunge epoch of 1991-1996, bands such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Blind Melon seemed to lose favor with fans who were starting to get into the newer and numbing sounds of rap-metal and generic "modern" rock.
Now I am not one to either mourn the grunge era or tout the Limp Bizkit flag, but the beginning of the last decade brought us some serious musicians who really seemed to embody the rock star persona, albeit with a tinge of irony and alienation. Unified Theory consists of ex-members of some of the giants of this time period. Dave Krusen (drums) played on Pearl Jam’s first album, "10," and guitarist Christopher Thorn and bassist Brad Smith both used to be in Blind Melon. Chris Shinn (lead vocals/guitar) was in the L.A. band Celia Green who really didn’t cause more than a blip on the rock’n’roll radar screen. The four of them met up somehow and formed this band and they are now touring in support of their new album, due out in August.
Lanky frontman Chris Shinn looks sort of like
Maynard from Tool, except for his long thin dreads that cascade down past
his
shoulders. The similarities to Tool don’t end
their though. Chris’ voice, which sounds as if he actually took singing
lessons at some point in his life (for better or for worse), is also
reminiscent of Maynard. It is a high pitched melodic voice that often trembles
with slight vibrato in it’s upper range. The band’s music is much warmer
and friendlier however. Their brand of rock focuses more on melody and
emotional ups and downs than on pounding intensity.
The set started off with Chris Thorn playing the lap steel guitar. By the second song this sound was abandoned in favor of Shinn’s almost psychedelic strumming soaked in flange and chorus. Thorn lay off the lap steel and let his sustained lead guitar warbling act as a counter to Shinn’s vocals, never really breaking out into lead solo territory. Occasionally he would hand off his guitar to a roadie close by to tap a few keys on a Rhodes. The crowd, which consisted mostly of rock types who looked as if they were all bussed in from L.A., was immensely pleased and shouted for more. I saw the requisite rocker’s girlfriends, the lone rock child with his rock parents, and even a few rock cowboy hats.
About midway into the show, after an industrial
drum riff intro, Shinn’s voice could be heard an octave above his guitar,
"I feel
stranger now, much stranger..." It seemed to
me that his awkwardness was unfounded. After all, the audience consisted
of
those who implicitly understand this music. Chris'
dreamy riffs and the way he tuned his guitar to his voice (first time I
had ever seen this!), the band’s dead-on cover of Pink Floyd’s "Breathe,"
the comments about not realizing that today was a Sunday (who cares when
you're a rockstar?), the tightly controlled song structures, the melodic
and formulaic sound that evokes the music of their former bands... all
of these elements plus the fact that they are pretty sweet musicians equals
this: Unified Theory rocks! So what if the kids are not buying Pearl Jam
albums anymore, their true audience is alive and well.
After a final ode to hard rock trying to make
it, perhaps in the seedier rock bars of Hollywood, and a bass and tom-pounding
number in a time signature other then 4/4, the
show was over. The commercial appeal of Unified Theory seems to be just
a little radio play away. There are thousands of leather pants wearing
folks out there waiting for a new sound that reminds them of the old. The
recent glam rock revival was a fluke, a distraction. The masses will grow
tired of hearing bad rapping over metal riffs. Unified Theory is waiting
in the shadows, armed with some serious chops and an ammo belt full of
four minute rock songs. Stay tuned