Albums
Alice and Friends
2009
Release Date: 2009
By David Bevan
Reviewed September 1, 2009
No, they're not named after the Pavement tune; though they are noisy and lo-fi, Box Elders are more enamored of 1960s garage rock touchstones.
Box Elders did not take their name from an early Pavement tune. The Omaha trio honored instead the insect that infested the childhood home of two of its members, brothers Clayton and Jeremiah McIntyre. It's an easy pit for a music nerd to stumble into, but aside from the tape hiss, the McIntyres' band share little sonic DNA with Pavement. Rather, they seem to be just a few strands or family tree branches away from another set of unkempt devotees, Black Lips. And while that comparison is awfully difficult to shake throughout much of their debut full-length, , it's kind of the point. However often the lo-fi patina seems to lend what's happening musically a cozy spot in what's happening "right now," it doesn't change what's under the hood: you've no doubt heard the 1960s garage surf of Box Elders before. It just wasn't theirs.