We Used To Be Family is a post-rock quartet based out of Baltimore which at time echos the likes of Godspeed You Black Emperor and The Arcade Fire (sans vocals). There is something insanely special about them. Half the band is classically trained and the other half learned by the seat of their pants. How the later half keeps up with all the odd time signatures is beyond me, but somehow they nail it every time. Their music has severely dramatic cresendos that take minutes, at times, to develop. This isn’t a pop record, so you’ll have to give each of their songs time to settle and build in to their beautiful swell of noise.

I had always wanted to work with We Used To Be Family, and after their set at NoVo earlier this year, Ruby came up to me asking if I’d be interested in producing their debut record. I was floored. It was a dream come true. The recording process was seamless. Alex Champagne engineering always helps that process with his finely tuned ears and impeccable work with strings. They were well rehearsed and were simply amazing people to work with. They didn’t even flinch after I asked them to track the the strings more than a 2 dozen times complete with harmonies. It was almost like that was how it was supposed to happen and they knew it.

The interesting thing about this band is that there is no one person who takes the leads. They all switch off and share democratically, which makes for an insanely dynamic listen. Ruby Fulton, effortlessly and always with a smile plays the violin, trumpet and Wurlitzer. Andrew Histand plays the cello (sometimes with heavy distortion through an amp and always shredding the hairs off the bow in to a pile by his feet), Michael Yoon plays the Twin Peaks guitar, Michael Shank plays the guitar that at times doesn’t even sound like a guitar and Mr. Brian Litz plays the drums like it’s the last day on earth.

Here are my two favorite tracks from this record. Be sure to listen all the way through. These songs take a while to build – especially with Jerkface Shipley. Check out that ending. The massive amounts of strings will blow your ears to the moon.

Rose Isn’t A Better Stickball Player Than Randy Milligan

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Jerkface Shipley

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The self-titled debut album by Baltimore quartet We Read Minds is scarcely more than a half hour long, but its very first track announces itself as something more epic and ambitious than you might expect. The 6-minute “Of The Nest” features a winding, unpredictable structure and a number of disorienting shifts in rhythm. But on another level, it’s also consistently midtempo and accessible, effectively establishing the band’s keyboard and guitar-driven sound. The brooding, groove-driven songs of We Read Minds seem to take a number of cues from a band they’ve opened for, Lake Trout, which is refreshing given that the latter is one of Baltimore’s longest running and most popular live bands, but hasn’t ever seemed to have many kindred spirits or followers in the local music scene.

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After “Time Doesn’t Lie,” the towering 9-minute epic that Arbouretum featured on Kale, last year’s split LP with Pontiak, I had high hopes that the Baltimore quartet would more ambitiously lengthy songs on their next full-length. On that front, their third album Song Of The Pearl is a disappointment, in that only one song, “Infinite Corridors,” stretches out past the 6-minute mark with a false ending and a climactic coda. But beyond my own arbitrary expectations, Arbouretum has made a solid and varied album, where the shorter more concise songs are more of a strength than a weakness, and the band’s stellar guitar work is on display as always.

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“Thin Dominion” is one of Song Of The Pearl‘s most immediate standouts by virtue of also being its hardest rocking track, with a heavy groove and rumbling toms. But elsewhere on the album, frontman Dave Heumann expands on the band’s austere aesthetic with warmer, earthier tones and more inviting songwriting, and “Down By The Fall Line” and the title track show a mellower side of Arbouretum. And “Midnight Cry” points toward a whole new direction for the band, with a faster tempo than their usual comfort zone, and a soaring lead guitar line reminiscent of Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets. Still, this album does make me yearn for bolder, longer jams that knock me out as much as “Time Doesn’t Lie.”

In the past, Baltimore-based singer/songwriter Jason Dove’s music never quite clicked with me, despite encouraging signs like his classic power pop influences, and the sense of humor in display in his entertaining Jason Dove Diaries YouTube series. But the click has definitely at least started to happen with Illegal Activities, his third solo album and first with a new backing band, Vacation Face. That sense of humor is still more restrained on Dove’s records, though; even when some laughter rises up in the mix on the song “Each And Every One Of Us,” it’s directly following the droll lyric “information doesn’t make advertisers any money.”

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Recorded by local rock mainstays J Robbins (formerly of Jawbox) and Chris Freeland (formerly of Oxes) and released by The Beechfields, the sound of Illegal Activities is dominated more by keyboards than Dove’s previous releases thanks to Vacation Face’s Mike Ward on piano and organ, but the sound isn’t actually any softer. Christopher Demeo, of Dove’s previous backing band the Magic Whip, plays drums on one song on Illegal Activities, and the right amount of Keith Moon-style bombast that he brings to the piano-driven rocker “If You Think We Don’t Care” helps make it one of the album’s best tracks, as well as its shortest at only 2 minutes 22 seconds. That song, along with the peppy “Song For Neil,” the ballad “Hallelujah,” and the twangy closer “Be Free,” make up the strong quartet of songs that end Illegal Activities on a high note, to the point that you almost wish Dove had instead frontloaded the best stuff to grab your attention earlier in the album.

Jason Urick is the kind of ubiquitous figure in Baltimore underground music that you’re bound to have tripped over at one point or another if you’ve spent any time in the scene, whether he was organizing the Once.Twice Festival, running the DIY venue Floristree, working at the record store the Sound Garden, or playing in the noise band Wzt Hearts. But it’s only now, a year after that group’s breakup, that Urick has issued his first solo album on Thrill Jockey.

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