It takes quite a voice to hold its own against the driving thrash metal guitar riffs, and the feat is even more impressive when it is done by a woman. Flyleaf singer Lacey Mosley pitches her voice over the aggressive backing of her band (the Texas quintet also includes Sameer Battacharya, Jared Hartmann, Pat Seals, and James Culpepper), at times with the sweetness of a teenager, and sometimes with a demonic screech in the tone (“I’m So Sick”) that leaves your eyes and ears wide open.
The demonic touch to the sound is all the more surprising when you consider that Flyleaf is actually a Christian band. Most of the songs on their albums (there have been three, a demo, and EP, and a full length album, all self-titled) are about the journey from outside to inside Christianity, told in a way that would shock most pastors. Flyleaf pulls no punches when it comes to the tortured soul, dwelling on topics like the Columbine shootings in “Cassie” to the pain of relationships in “Sorrow”.
Flyleaf is pretty opposite to what you might expect from an act comprised of Christians. With the chops of Korn and a lead singer who sounds like Avril Lavigne (but this time the angst is real) they’re a band that’s on their way.
The 1980s were an incredibly important decade in indie music history. It was during this decade that the first indie charts were compiled in the United States and in the United Kingdom; whether or not appearing on these lists was considered a sell-out depended on who you talked to. Fat chicks in tight leather would probably list Sonic Youth among those who ruined the indie scene; less stringent fans might decide that any type of success was not necessarily a bad thing for the movement as a whole. What would remain constant was the watchful eye of the big labels, who were always eager to exploit the underground scene and turn a profit on the “new” sound they had discovered.
The early ’80s saw unity among indie artists in the United States and to some extent in the United Kingdom. The creation of charts meant that any record released on a small label was considered independent; thus, you could have New Wave influenced prog rock like that turned out by REM in their college-playing days and the more distortion driven, under-produced sounds of Husker Du or Dinosaur Jr. in the same category. The big difference in the 1980s was that by the end of the decade, one type of music had slipped into the mainstream, while the other had not. The distortion of the garage bands would thus become known as “alternative music.”
Several big indie labels were formed during this time, which were to achieve notoriety in the 1990s, including Sarah Records in 1987 and Sub Pop in 1980. Founders of Sub Pop Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman actually went against everything indie music was supposed to stand for, relentlessly promoting their artists and seeking to popularize the music that they were turning out. Perhaps this is where fans of indie music should take a hard look at their criteria for bands; if music was not worth being listened to by a lot of people, it simply should not exist. The founders of Sub Pop embodied that in their promotion of bands such as Soundgarden, and of course Nirvana. In fact, the label would spawn a movement called the Singles club which would extend into the ultra glitzy and oily grip of Hollywood, about as counter to the idea of indie as you could hope to get.
In both the UK and the US, the indie scene was a direct reaction against the macho personas of big rock acts. Both the alternative sound in the US and the jangly genre of the UK represented artist’s thorough disgust at the excesses, prejudices, and false images of bands like Poison and Nelson.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the “major” indie artists were actually acting almost like recruiters for the big labels. Again, this should give many indie fans pause before judging one band or another as sell outs due to their “commercialization”. The term is better applied to imitators of the original sound for the purpose of money rather than to the sound developers. There is not a lot of credibility in the sell out argument when one realizes that it was Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth who set up Nirvana’s flight to fame, or that Breeder’s singer Kin Deal was an integral part of the incredibly ground-breaking and highly influential Pixies.
The motto for One Less Reason’s new album, Everyday Life, appears to be “music is back in ‘07”. If we’re all really honest, though, the music that these guys are putting out has never really been gone, it’s just under the radar in favor of something else in the popular taste right now (and that something else is crap).
This is not to say that OLR lack an original sound; far from it. Casual listeners will no doubt be tempted to draw comparisons between lead singer Cris Brown’s voice and that of Eddie Vedder or Scott Stapp (especially on tracks like “If you want me”), but the fact is that Brown’s voice has an edge to it that somehow makes him outgrunge even kings and pretenders. The band behind him demonstrates their chops on songs like “A day to be alone”, following his cutting performance with the backings of a sweet piano and violin ensemble before the bass takes it up a notch and rocks the détente.
Fans of rock will definitely find their heads nodding to the beats when they are listening to the power ballads, and fists in the air during the driving rock numbers of this Tennessee band. If you miss the old days of rock on the radio, load One Last Reason into your iPod and welcome music back!
