The Chairs [MySpace] are a young band that are at the musical equivalent of Class A baseball. From Appleton, Wisconsin and still in college, Laugh, It’s A Fright is their debut full length. Listening to the Chairs is like watch Josh Hamilton play Single A baseball: fun as hell and obvious to all who are watching to be only a brief stopping point on a much greater journey.

I was baseball obsessed child. To my immense delight, my hometown was given a minor league baseball team when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays came into the majors as an expansion team in 1994. I was primarily a fan of the major leagues, but I always loved to watch and follow my favorite players as they began their professional careers on my local team. It was fun to watch players who were never going anywhere, but who loved the game so much they were toiling away in its backwaters on the off chance that something great could happen to them, rub shoulders with potential future superstars.

I remember an August night a few days after the amateur draft, I saw Josh Hamilton play in his first ever professional game. Hamilton is now possibly the best slugger in the game, but even barely out of high school, he was noticeably playing on a higher level than everybody else on the field. It was apparent to anybody watching the game that as young as he was, he was going to be playing on a much larger stage soon.

In music, I always find an artist’s influences to be telling. Until recently, The Chairs’ MySpace page listed only three: Neutral Milk Hotel, Bon Iver, and Radiohead. I can absolutely see all three but I would like to add one more: Of Montreal. Like oM, The Chairs play eclectic, slightly funky, songs that are each packed with multiple musical ideas and which display an acknowledged debt to the Elephant 6 Collective and their massive cabinet of ‘60’s and ‘70’s obsessions. There are so many ideas and hooks within these songs that had they all been properly stretched out and explored, Laugh, It’s A Fright could have been a triple album. But all these ideas, as compressed and layered as they are, instead give this album a dense and layered effect which makes it a joy to pick through upon (many) repeated listens.

Lead singer Alex Schaaf possesses a voice that has the rare quality of being hauntingly familiar and yet completely unique. Perhaps the band’s strongest asset is their sense of restraint, which enables every individual idea in each song to shine, rather than to turn the whole thing into an overwhelming mess. This album excites me because unlike other debut albums by acts such as The Strokes and Interpol, who came to us fully formed and evolved, The Chairs have managed to release a great, enjoyable album that feels merely like the beginning. This is one of the better debut albums you will hear this year as well as straight up one of the better albums.

It’s really hard for me to believe that this is a debut album. The maturity exhibited is far beyond that of most indie bands, never mind one as young as this. It’s also hard for me to believe this is a band that will remain unsigned for much longer. Like Josh Hamilton playing in Single A, hearing The Chairs at this stage in their career should be enjoyed and savored because you know full well that they won’t be at this level for much longer.

[mp3] The Chairs – “This Isn’t A Fire Fortress”
[mp3] The Chairs – “The Hipster”

Last 5 posts by Tom Williams

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