After I heard “Concrete Seconds” off of Pinback’s Blue Screen Life (2001) in early 2006, I began to fall for the band. It’s ethereal rainy day music, inspiring you to float along, deep in thought, intertwined in their lilting rendition of indie rock. The consistency of their sound is comforting and travels through each of their albums. Each song moves with minimalistic keyboard parts, doleful dual vocals, soaring guitar lines, and meditative drum beats. Within them is a certain warmth.

It all started in 1998, when Pinback’s founding members found some time on their hands. Armistead Burwell Smith IV and Rob Crow, both singers, songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, began putting together songs that evolved into their ’98 self-titled debut, a 10-song thrust into dreamily controlled strangeness. They named the band after a spaceship crew member from the 1974 sci-fi comedy Dark Star: The Spaced Out Odyssey. Sergeant Pinback is actually fuel engineer, Bill Fruge, who puts on Pinback’s space suit when trying to rescue Pinback from suicide from wading into a fuel tank before the start of the ship’s mission to destroy unstable planets. Fruge inadvertently takes the place of Pinback and adopts the ship’s mascot, a mischievous alien “beach ball with claws”, that refuses to stay put in the food locker and forces Pinback to chase it all over the ship. Does it get any stranger?

mp3: Pinback – Good To Sea – Autumn of the Seraphs (2007)
mp3: Pinback – The Yellow Ones – Summer In Abaddon (2004)
mp3: Pinback – My Star – Offcell EP (2003)
mp3: Pinback – Concrete Seconds – Blue Screen Life (2001)
mp3: Pinback – Loro – Pinback (1998)

Pinback’s most recent album, Autumn of the Seraphs, was released in September 2007. The band is currently on tour with dates across the U.S. They play the Ogden in Denver on November 6th.

Nov 5 – Granada Theatre, Lawrence, Kansas
Nov 6 – Ogden Theatre, Denver, Colorado
Nov 7 – The Depot, Salt Lake City, Utah
Nov 9 – Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, British Columbia
Nov 10 – Neumo’s Crystal Ballroom, Seattle, Washington
Nov 11 – Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, Oregon
Nov 12 – Humboldt State University The Kate Buchanan Room, Arcata, California
Nov 13 – Bimbo’s 365 Club, San Francisco, California
Nov 14 – El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, California
Nov 15 – Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach, California
Nov 16 – The Casbah, San Diego, California

Pinback | MySpace

Download through Amazon:
Autumn of the Seraphs | Summer in Abaddon | Offcell | Blue Screen Life | Pinback

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Featured Bands, Songs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.