Music: Alive in Wild Paint: Ceilings

Our Take

Alive in Wild Paint’s debut has been eagerly anticipated for months now, especially considering that the band wowed fans back when they were called Goodbye Tomorrow. Having put out a three song EP that stood out thanks to its tight melodies and harmonic vocals, the band regrouped and changed their name and are now back with their debut album Ceilings. The result is some of the best down tempo indie rock in quite some time.

The vocals are extremely melodic, as one might expect from former Terminal vocalist Travis Bryant. Bryant’s voice is warm and inviting, filled with melody that bridges gaps in between the instrumental arrangements. But at the same time, though his voice is higher pitched it is done in a beautiful rather than whiny way meaning that just about anyone should be able to get into Alive in Wild Paint’s music. In addition to this, the lyrics are surprisingly insightful and true to life. Listen to a song such as “Children of Divorce” and it will be easy to see that this is a group with deeper messages than many of their genre mates.

Though sometimes album that stay minimalist and down tempo can become boring, Ceilings doesn’t suffer from this problem. Many of its tracks start with just guitar work and slowly build into light indie rock songs. The instrumentalists have a knack for creating compositions that start off with just one or two instruments and climax with layered textures of sound that could rival many groups. If “Carousel” was the group’s best work as Goodbye Tomorrow, as Alive in Wild Paint they have produced an album of Carousel’s, with just about every track able to stand on its own.

I predicted great things for this band when they released their three song EP back in 2006. And though they’ve been through a name change and a minor lineup change, this prediction holds true. Ceilings is one of the first great indie rock releases of 2008, and hopefully this band will find the audience they’ve been waiting for with this exciting debut.

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Chris Dahlberg
February 18, 2008