Melodic, rhythmatic wanna-be-punk-but-we-just-can't-fight-our-underlying-pop-sensibilities. Interspersed with fits of heavily distorted feedback riding a wave of grooving bass and drums. Three note riffs you'll find stuck in your head hours later.

8 MP3 Songs in this album (32:29) !
Related styles: ROCK: Grunge, ROCK: Progressive Rock

People who are interested in Nirvana Pixies Fugazi should consider this download.


Details:
In early 2007 The Stragglers gutted all their old material and moved from the tiny, Appalachian town of Athens, Ohio, to a tiny, roach-infested apartment in a now-condemned building in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Defying a market-friendly, you-shouldn't-use-phoenetic-symbols-in-your-name-and-it-should-always-be-easy-to-pronounce approach to music branding, they renamed themselves Ålushus ("uh-loo-shus") after a character imagined by guitarist/vocalist Shannon Sullivan in his childhood.

The effect of this transition emerges in the eight songs on Ålushus EP, which finds the band murking somewhere between chaos and complexity. Shifting drastically between dug-in grooves and frantic fits of noise, Ålushus has developed a sound that looks back to an era when Pixies-style dynamic changes were king.

"Possibilities" is a rant about the burdens of boundless potential. Written upon the band's awakening from its suburban cocoon, the track's frenzied pace and confused chord structure reflects the distress of impending adulthood. At a time when everybody is thinking about the future, it's easy to forget about right now.

"Whole Grain" has nothing to do with wheat flour. It is both a bouncy, crowd-moving, 100 hook live song about nothing and a toned-down, tongue-in-cheek contemplation of, well, nothing. Its ambivalence regarding volume is a signature of Ålushus' sound.

Ålushus EP was released on July 5, 2008 with a party at Bar Matchless in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Ålushus is:

Kyle Butler :: guitar/vocals
Shannon Sullivan :: guitar/vocals
Kevin Bednar :: bass
Andrew Ackerly :: drums

"They are in a really great melodic grunge vein right now, reminiscent of Nirvana or The Pixies. They came off as noisy, yet tight, with a really commanding stage presence that lacks any sort of affectation."
- Peter Aleksa, www.bushwickbk.com (May 29, 2008)

"Like a refreshing sorbet compared to most other bands you see in New York"
- Jim Archer, The Art of Shooting