The Narrator, Tight Phantomz
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Some of the material on All That was incubated by the Narrator’s original lineup, which got together in 2002: guitarists and vocalists Sam Axelrod and Jesse Woghin, bassist James Barron, and drummer Nate Heneghan. (Woghin is also co-owner of the local label Flameshovel, which has put out all the Narrator’s records.) But after releasing the EP Youth City Fire in 2004 and the full-length Such Triumph in 2005–and touring “probably too much” to promote them, according to Woghin–the band started to develop stress fractures. Woghin and Heneghan were old friends, but Heneghan’s relationship with the band was failing. “Things were just kinda going down, down, down,” Axelrod says, “and we sort of couldn’t play together anymore.”
The band spent two weeks recording the album this past September and October, with help from drummers Dave Turncrantz of the local instrumental metal band Russian Circles and Dan Fetherston of the Oxford Collapse, a Brooklyn indie outfit that has frequently toured with the Narrator. Turncrantz’s contribution was limited to some strong, solid drumming (“he just showed up and beat the shit out of them,” says Axelrod), but Fetherston took it upon himself to act as a sort of editor for the group. Before All That their material had enough raw energy and spiky melodicism to keep it interesting, but even they admit that they tended to overcrowd their songs with complicated transitions. As Woghin puts it: “‘Here’s the bridge. Here’s the bridge to the bridge. Here’s the bridge to the bridge to the bridge.’ It’s like, what is going on?”
After finishing All That the Narrator recruited a permament drummer, local painter Kevin Vlack. For months now advance MP3s from the album have been getting lots of blog love, including from biggies like Stereogum, and on May 15 it finally comes out. The new lineup is playing a release party at the Hideout on Friday with Lust’s band, Tight Phantomz; members of Mannequin Men DJ between sets.
