From the dusty crates #3: Crashland

Well, we moved into the new place. You know what's a whole bucket-ton of fun? Carrying eight car loads worth of stuff across a car park, up a flight of stairs, and down a hallway. Fortunately, it's done now, so I can return to the feature that internet denizens the world over are calling "instantly forgettable" and "more than superfluous".

Today, we're talking about Crashland, a three-piece who I believe were from the West Country. That's Bristol, not, like, Arizona. I may be wrong about that, though. For a very short time, they were a staple on Steve Lamacq's Evening Session, and every time, without fail, Steve would refer to them as "the tightest power trio in the country." The singer came off as arrogant in interviews, but they didn't get much press, and though their album 'Glued' was pretty good, they disappeared not long afterward, leaving very little impact on the music scene, and, as my research this evening concludes, even less impact on this Internet.

They wrote pretty straightforward indie-rock songs with big choruses which were, by and large, unremarkable, but struck a chord with me at the time, and 'Glued' remains a CD that stays (guess what word goes here) to my car stereo most of the time. The last song on there, 'We're on Fire', is especially lovely, although calling it this generation's 'Yesterday' may be pushing it, writer of Crashland's last.fm bio. I once saw the band open for Reef (Terrifying true fact: Reef had TWO number one albums) at Shepherds Bush Empire, and of course Crashland were vastly superior. After 'Glued', the band was dropped by Independiente and put out a pretty killer EP before calling it a day. When the EP came out, we went to see them at The Monarch, and it was one of those gigs. We got there (we being myself and Alex Wells), assuming that it'd be pretty empty, and it was a sellout, with every single person - band and crowd - being surprised to see so many fans for the band. Here's a couple of songs and the video for their first single, 'Standard Love Affair'.

[download Crashland - We're on Fire]
[download Crashland - Money Shot]