Ok, I'm assuming most people here know a couple that is romantically engaged. This could be your father and your mother, or it could be your best friend and her boyfriend, or maybe it's yourself and your significant other. Regardless, of the combination we all know people who spend their every waking moment together and become nearly inseperable once they become intertwined in their relationship. Now, imagine if this said couple, whoever that might be to you, decided to make music together. Just the two of them. And mind you this is not a karaoke group or a Sonny and Cher tribute group, they are actually going to make real music. They pack up their belongings, move to the west coast and start touring across their country singing songs about love, life, and everything in between.
Well, that my friends, is exactly what Mates of State did. Kori Gardner and Josh Hammel met in Lawrence, Kansas while they were involved with other people and other musical projects. Although they exchanged daily e-mails, they didn't get together until three months later when they were both single again, and were inseparable from then on. Instead of adding members to fill out a full lineup, they decided to create a new sound in indie pop rock that is hard to imitate. Consisting of only a few keyboards and a drum set MOS has been creating jittery, scatter-brained, multi-vocal pop songs for over ten years now. Which brings the question, after so many years of just being two people in the same band, why should anyone expect something new from these guys when they roll into town.
The answer to that is one word: offspring. After becoming parents in the recent years, Mates of State's sound has grown and matured in a positive direction. In a recent article in New York Magazine examines the difference in their latest album compared to their older material, "the vocals are breathy and sweet instead of antsy; the orchestral textures and multipart harmonies evoke the Beach Boys’ 1966 landmark, Pet Sounds, with Gardner a long-lost Wilson sister. Mates of State admit that suburban living has helpfully mellowed their music. “I want to make sense,” Gardner says. “I want people to relate to us. It’s way harder to write a concise, meaningful pop song than it is to write chaotic rock songs.”
So in short, when you go to Emo's don't expect to see a version of Donnie and Marie Osmond singing pop ballads. Rather, anticipate to see/hear intelligent, progressive, positive, jittery indie rock that would bring a smile to the most miserly of people. But also expect prepare to see a married couple growing musically and romantically. The latter half which might make you groan from time to time, but hey at least it's not your mom and dad up there. Gross.
Click here for tickets!
Video for Get Better the lead single off their new album Re-Arrange Us:
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