The Local Traumatic – March 10, 2012
| Stan Says: | Jodi Says: | |
| The Local Traumatic is Matt McConomy on bass, Christian Spence on guitar (and vocals), Joshua Thomas on drums and Julia Bullock singing. Their sound almost falls into the “shoegaze” category, with anthemic style vocal lines. A cheerful vocal over dour music makes for an interesting combination and one that on paper doesn’t seem to work, yet The Local Traumatic makes it work. Julia’s vocals are very “pixie-girl-ish” and approach the style that Gwen Stefani has made popular in her band No Doubt. Me personally not being a huge fan of No Doubt, yet not hating them, I find that The Local Traumatic take it into the enjoyable range by eliminating the overbearing Ska music style that is the backbone of No Doubt. They replace it with a heavier rock sound and the soaring wall of sound guitars. Best is that Julia’s voice isn’t as annoying as I find Gwen Stefani’s to be. She also has a great stage presence and is great at crowd interaction. She knows she’s on stage and is the voice of the band. I usually say very little about drums and drumming, and don’t have much to say here either. I can say that Joshua’s drumming is very cool and not just bashing loud. The guitar work is good and has an interesting amount of intricacy to it. I’ve said that it’s got a “Shoe-gazey” sound, yet it doesn’t stay there. Plus, Christian plays a very cool looking Danelectro guitar that has a great tone to it that I didn’t think could be produced by those guitars as they’re more known for their look than anything else. Late in their set they did a cover song that shocked me. It’s one that I would not have thought they could pull off and one that I’m very happy to say they did not just do a recitation of, instead they took it and made it their own. They covered the ‘Til Tuesday song, “Voices Carry” and did it very well. The Local Traumatic is a solid and cohesive band. Julia is a great front person to the band. Occasionally Christian seemed to want to take over the spotlight, not exactly share it. It seems that occasionally some conflicts within the band come forth and the stage is not the place to work them out. The Local Traumatic is worth seeing, first for the infectious enjoyable energy they have and then for their music. |
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The band, The Local Traumatic, is Julia Bullock on vocals, Christian Spence on guitar and also vocals, Matt McConomy on bass and Joshua Thomas playing drums. My first take on the band was that Julia and Christian have worked hard to sound really good together. They are definitely an indie rock style band with fast beats thrown in every song. They remind me a lot of a 90’s style punk/rock band, though no one specific band name comes to mind. They play a mix of new songs and some covers usually, at least I heard a couple covers this night. I very much enjoyed their new song called “Breakdown” I believe. What stood out most was the bass playing on this very high energy song. I also like the song which I think was called “Stupid Mistakes Made”, which had the sound of a very soft piano at the beginning. However, as you started to really get into the song, you quickly realized that it actually is some excellent guitar playing. Their songs are fun, upbeat, and are different from each other which is wonderful! I also like that the bass, guitar and drums play off of each other fairly well and generate a unifying sound that all bands should strive for, in general. Though, I have to admit that I may not have the song titles correctly because they were not always announced this evening. Though I enjoyed the songs, this evening the sound mix was a little off making it hard to hear all the lyrics. At the Visulite, I traditionally sit at a table near to the front, so it is possible that I didn’t have optimal listening position. Regardless, I attribute this difficulty to their new equipment more than anything else, and would go see these guys again without hesitation. |
