Fuzz & Whisper: Aaron Espinoza of Earlimart (Photo By: Chris Castaneda)
It has been nearly a decade since Earlimart rose out of the L.A. music scene and established themselves among indie rock circles as a band to watch. With each EP and LP they have added under their belts Earlimart manage to take a step forward towards new opportunities.
As the Pixies act as the shield bearers of alternative rock's past, Earlimart's Aaron Espinoza encapsulates where the Pixies could be had they never broken up in the first place. His whispery, start-stop songwriting bridges the likes of the Pixies with a band like Grandaddy and in-between lies Earlimart. At the very heart of Earlimart is a punk band full of bite. You should be only lucky to ever catch them perform a cover of Wire's "Strange" and you'll hear the punk in them. Last year's Treble & Tremble, the band's third album, was critically hailed as a solid effort.
Earlimart comes across on stage as a different band from the one on record. Atmospheres are key to Espinoza and company. The experimentation with sounds is part of what makes them unique. How they carry that over to the stage is equally as interesting, or, to some, absolutely unexciting. It is easy to label Earlimart as band that doesn't stir the blood. Espinoza's vocals could be construed as overly sleepy and dull. But there is something rather dark about Earlimart below these layers of swirling melodic messages. The crowd that filled the room at Schubas was by no means bored. Even when Espinoza's broken microphone during "Heaven Adores You" turned the song into an instrumental the crowd kept in pace with the inaudible lyrics.
"All They Ever Do Is Talk" was sinisterly twisted while "Susan's Husband's Gunshop" was a reminder that fuzzed up guitars can stride with some swagger. As the night approached its end,"Burning The Cow" was the popular choice by fans for the band to play during its encore and that they did. But the true highlight of the show was not the audience request. In what felt like a somber moment, Earliment quietly and gracefully let "Dreaming Of..." be their final note of the night. They could have let the latter rocker be the last song, but, instead, they took the least rocking song in their catalog and made it their "goodnight" to the crowd.
It was just the right stroke to close a night of gorgeous sounds.
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