The Deaths - Birmingham
2005

I meant to write about The Deaths a while ago. Like some other bloggers, I downloaded tons of mp3's from the SXSW web site in hopes of finding the next small thing. What I found was a distressing level of mediocrity. This track by the Deaths caught my ear though. A little research turned up the following info:

The Deaths are a four-piece from Minneapolis. Probably even played a show with good ol' Tapes n' Tapes. In 2005 they self-released Choir Invisible which is going to be re-released this year. The band has yet to mention who exactly is releasing it though. This year the Austin Chronicle called the Deaths a SXSW sleeper (I won't delve into the irony here) and boy were they right. Pretty much nobody outside of Chuck Klosterman has written about these guys. And that was way back when Klosterman actually worked for Spin. If the Deaths are lucky, Klosty might mention them in his next memoir about Death and generate a little more buzz.

My take on the band? They sound a bit like the Charlatans, the original old-timey drug sailors from San Francisco who scored big with a rustic cover of "Codine" that essentially jump-started the psychedelic revolution. Civil War pop -- with lovebeads.