Artist: Various

Album: Invaders

Label: Kemado Records

Tracks: 18

Review By: Jacob Gehman

 

I have a friend who is into heavier music. The second I walked into church this morning (this review being written on a nice Sunday evening) he cornered me and said, “Dude!” He likes that word a lot. “Dude! Did you check out Big Business?”

 

“What?” I frowned, not bothering to mask my confusion. Before he could launch into some kind of detailed explanation, I remembered the conversation from last week. “No. I didn’t.” I shrugged. He may have been expecting me to, on Monday, go out to the music store and buy their entire catalogue but as much as I respect his taste in music (he’s one of the few people I know who shares my keen appreciation for bands like The Residents) I’d had no intention of actually following through with it.

 

And as I left church today I once again had no intentions of remembering the name Big Business, let alone checking their music out, even though my friend called them ridiculously sludgy. But fate has a weird way of coming around and slapping me for my pretentious airs. When I had received “Invaders” to review my attention had been drawn to artists like The Sword, Dungen, Torche, Diamond Nights, and Wolfmother, not to mention the promise that this was a collection of previously unreleased material (some are just new songs, others are live tracks, and some are different versions of previously released tracks.) Now while looking over the track list only one name jumped out at me: Big Business.

 

From my prior listens of the album I knew the majority of the music is heavy, with the exceptions coming from Kemado natives Dungen and Diamond Nights, who are psychedelic rock and rock n roll, respectively. There are many familiar names on here, which I was excited to hear for the first time. The F***ing Champs, Pelican, Comets on Fire, and, of course, Big Business, just to name a few.

 

If you enjoy the heavy independent music scene, you should find “Invaders” to be right up your ally. This is an excellent collection of songs and next week when I go to church I can tell my friend, “Yes, I listened to Big Business,” and “Have you checked out Invaders?”