Prosaics - Aghast Agape

The debut EP from Prosaics comes with a suggestion to file them under My Bloody Valentine, Interpol, New Order and Joy Division. While that’s all well and good, there’s something being missed about the band. On Aghast Agape Prosaics plays harder, and probably faster, than any of those bands. And unlike the rest of those bands, with the exception of Interpol, they sound like they’re enjoying themselves. If one is to follow the imagined melding of those four bands, Prosaics is basically a hip, noise-leaning goth-like band, which isn’t far from the truth. Vocalist Andy Comer does sometimes sound like he’s dying when he sings, but more in a desperate sense of detachment and yet not detached sort of way, rather than an I-wish-I-was-dying way. Comer’s guitar playing occasionally harkens back to The Cure, as does the arrangement of the songs. And at the same time, this comes in a nearly Black Rebel Motorcycle Club sort of arrangement, only not drenched in feedback or some dirge-like wall of guitar sound, also a la My Bloody Valentine. There seems to be a lot of 80s, possibly new wave, influence appearing in the bands hip music circles are embracing lately, so it should come as no surprise that Prosaics may, though probably not, be the second coming of goth, by way of New York. And yet, they are poppier than this pigeonholing lends them. Not pop in the Billboard sense of the word; pop as in the snapping pace of the songs. And, reference point or not, this band is not goth. Regardless, it is true that you can rock and not be party-happy all at the same time. Prosaics has brought it to you, and the tight sounds of Aghast Agape is where it's at. [www.prosaics.com]