Karmella's Game - "Skip The Funeral" (mp3)

Karmella's Game might be my favorite rock band in Baltimore right now, ever since I caught a show by them about a year and a half ago. I've talked about them here a little bit before, and ranked them as the 3rd best live show I saw in 2005. Their sound is a kind of super girly synth-driven power pop that, if I just heard on record, would never leap out as something I want to hear, but their live show completely won me over by virtue of them being a totally tight band that isn't afraid of showmanship.

Last Friday, they played a release party for their first full-length album, The Art of Distraction, at the Ottobar, and it was nice to see them pack in a good crowd at a slightly bigger venue after seeing them fill up the Talking Head a couple times. At shows they usually wear these kind of private school uniforms, and all look like teenagers anyway, but on Friday they dressed up more like they were going to the prom. And they went all out, starting the show by playing the album's one quiet song, "The Remains," with the band's bassist on cello and three violinists joining in for a string quartet effect. They played for an hour and probably went through every single song they have. I'd been kind of holding out on seeing them for a while, because I was really waiting for the album to come out. The only thing they'd released previously, an EP that's now almost 3 years old, really doesn't capture the greatness of their live show, so I wanted to be able to finally take home a copy of all the newer songs they'd been playing. And the album still isn't quite all I'd hoped, but it's close enough. Not so close that I won't have to keep checking out shows to get the full effect, though.

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wow. If a Rentals reunion wasn't already in effect, this would fill the void nicely.
 
yeah, there's definitely a Rentals vibe, there's another song on the album where it's uncanny.
 
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