Traindead

Traindead
(self-released)

A A A Comments (0) By Serene Dominic Thursday, Jul 10 2008

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Traindead, Source Victoria, and Domo are scheduled to perform Friday, July 11.

Yucca Tap Room in Tempe

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Jagermeister Liqueur

The only thing music correspondents are concerning themselves with right now is what's the song of the summer gonna be — that special confection that encapsulates in 3 1/2 minutes something that's going to make life on a planet that's cooking itself with Jiffy-Pop finality worth sticking around for. Well, Traindead's got at least two of those, which in a simpler time would be a kickass two-sided single. On the one hand, you've got the slacker anthem "Slowburner," which is exactly what it says it is. And on the flip side is "B Street," a song about young lust that takes place in winter, with a protagonist anticipating pain right at the get-go and repeating to himself "I've gotta get you home before anyone knows," as if he's either killed the girl or plied her with too much Jägermeister. Personnel data on Traindead is pretty skimpy: a band that's been together a couple of months and has just now released an EP, and that's really the way to do things. Who cares about last names — all you need know is that Taylor, Chad, and Laura just served you seven great songs with not a flake of filler. They look and sound tender in years, but the schoolboy drawing of a knock-kneed girl in legwarmers on a car hood and concerns like "Tomorrow can't seem to get here fast enough" makes me think that there beats the heart of an old lech, and that this impeccable song cycle might do for Lolita what Pinkerton did for Madame Butterfly. Sure, it's doomed summer love, but it's the singing-la-la-la-at-the-end kind, not the revving-up-in-a-closed-garage kind.