Flickerstick - "live from Atlanta"

Back in 2001 there was an excellent reality series on VH1 called, Bands On The Run. Despite the show showing Flickerstick in a less than flattering light much of the time they weren't on stage, they ultimately won the show, based on their incendiary live performance. After hearing "live from Atlanta", one can hear why. Much of this CD showcases a mellow alt-rock artistic intensity without foregoing pop sensibilities. But I find them to be at their best when they are really rocking out, like on “contract killers”.

On their My Space page Flickerstick list that they sound like, “The song styling of Spiritualized mixed with the catchiness of U2 and Coldplay, with a helpfull (sic) dash of the persona and edge of the Rolling Stones.” Far more interesting than Coldplay to me, Brandin Lea's vocals definitely make you take notice, but the rest of the band create a music swirl behind him that I must admit is at times reminiscent of U2...yet without at all really sounding like them. Several tracks on the album actually remind me of the Bends-era of Radiohead.

In addition to the 11 live tracks on this CD, there is one new studio track, “helicopter”, that like the afore mentioned, “contract killers”, really rocks! I presume this is the single they will try to push to radio, and I can see why, it’s a catchy piece of alt-rock.

There are also 3 videos on this disc (for “beautiful”, “helicopter”, and, “coke”), but unfortunately attempts to play them on my computer ended in error messages, and it did not work in my DVD player either. But the 12 great music tracks are enough to make this album one that will get lots of play, both on Lazlo's Den, and my own stereo.

www.flickerstick.com