The Sky Drops (fuzzed-up guitar/drums) at the Cave

The Sky Drops:
"Now Would Be"
"Green to Red"
(from Clouds of People 2006. Buy it here.)

This is mostly a local heads-up -- if you read a decent range of music blogs, you've probably already come across the Sky Drops, the guitar and drums duo of Monika Bullette and Rob Montejo. Bullette also made a splash (in relative terms) with The Secrets, an album that she self-released and made available (free!) on line last year. That one didn't really appeal to me, but her collaboration with Montejo sounds pretty good.

The name of the band and the title of the album seem well-chosen, since their music churns along in a big thundercloud of fuzzed-out guitars. "Now Would Be" actually starts off like it wants to be a Black Sabbath song, but lightens up (a bit) on the verses. The music is often foreboding, but the lyrics manage to poke some sunlight though the clouds ("Now would be a good time/to be awake"; "Hang on/We're not on this Earth too long"). As a musical descriptor, "shoegaze" doesn't actually signify that much to me, but if it does to you, then the Sky Drops are supposed to be like that.

The Sky Drops play the Cave in Chapel Hill tonight (7/28) -- go make them feel welcome. (Or, if you are house-bound, I believe the Cave streams live video of their shows, so if that doesn't crash your browser, you could try that.)