The Loyal Divide – CD release party – June 16 @ Skully’s

The Loyal Divide / June 16, 2007 / Skully’s

MP3: Tulip

Here in the sheltered Donewaiting world we don’t look too far outside the walls of the message board to discover new local bands. It’s true. Like, when The Loyal Divide showed up to pimp an upcoming show, they were met with “hey doodz, nice spam” and “never heard of ya, never will” type comments. But figuring, “ah, what the hell, I might as well hear what these guys sound like so I can avoid any further posts in the board that they might make”, I hit the MySpace link they provided expecting to hear either a) another O.A.R.-influenced jam-rock band or b) some glossed-out “modern” rawk band with a sound tailormade for some rock ’em, sock ’em extreme sports PlayStation 3 game.

What I heard was Modest Mouse covering the Cure on the song “Lights”.

Whoa … hold on a second.

You can’t go around making this type of music and be “undiscovered”. WE can’t just let a band like this go unhyped or leave them off any “Bands to Watch” list (a tired DJ told me that The Loyal Divide DID garner some attention a few years back and were put on a magical list but didn’t quite make the cut).

So we’ve got this band (have I introduced them yet? Donewaiting readers, meet The Loyal Divide) who play all over the place – at cool clubs and gross sports bars – that NOBODY knows about. Ain’t that right Blueprint?

“Personally, I’m a big fan of the Loyal Divide and have paid to see them play many times. I know most of yall dont know who they are, but in terms of local rock bands they’ve got the biggest draw in this city, yet go unnoticed because partially they dont play at spots like carabar or bourbon street and aren’t a part of that scene, and partly because their style isnt ‘garagy’.”

Chris Deville did a bang-up job in his feature on The Loyal Divide in this week’s Alive and shed quite a bit of light on this band that most of US (us = the Donewaiting world) knew nothing about but apparently are drawing 200 people at nearly every show they perform. I’m not even going to pretend to know the band’s history, what their motivations are, where they hope to take this thing in the future. But I sure as shit am going to pop my Loyal Divide cherry tomorrow night at Skully’s where I’m sure to be the outsider (Sara Smith, wanna be my date?) amongst a gaggle of Loyal Divide-loving music fans.

Here’s the thing … by simply showing interest in the band on the board, I received an advance copy of the EP which will get it’s “official” release tomorrow night and it’s just not the type of thing I expected to hear out of a Columbus band. No offense to y’all that I’ve been going to see for the last few years, but there is something in The Loyal Divide’s sound that screams out “We’re ready to go on tour with The Arcade Fire or Bright Eyes or Modest Mouse or ….” And I have little doubt that the band could hold their own against any of the blog world’s darlings. Of course, I’ve never seen them live, maybe they can’t duplicate the recorded golden sounds or maybe they wear khaki shorts and flip-flops or something that will kill any buzz the band has created, but I sincerely doubt it.

One step above most of the local competition, the Columbus-by-way-of-Oxford band has even shot a few videos.

“Tulip”

“Backes”

“Slippery People” (live @ Skully’s)

Here are some obligatory links:

The Loyal Divide website
The Loyal Divide on MySpace

And make sure to stop by the music booth at Comfest to pick up a copy of OH CRAP VOL.4 which will feature The Loyal Divide’s “Lights”