The Evangenitals

I have mentioned The Evangenitals in passing a number of times and feel it is time to give them a post of their own. Maybe highlight a few songs that you need to hear.



As mentioned I saw The Evangenitals a couple of years ago at The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles, the very first thing that struck me prior to them playing a not was the size of the kick drum, man it was huge. The drum kit itself looked like an oversized novelty kit that you might see a miniature monkey playing or sat on top of a novelty alarm clock.

The band themselves were the antithesis of the other two bands on the bill, Von Stone and Trainwreck, but by the same token Evangenitals were as “Californian” as the other two, but very much a different place.

The set was pretty breathtaking from what I recall, they were tight, melodic, welcoming and performed like seasoned professionals and it was a formality that I would buy the album and so off to the merch stand I walked and bought their debut We are The Evangenitals.

Now you know as debuts go its disjointed, it doesn’t sound like a single album, it sounds more like a compilation, a mix CD of some of their songs, that’s not to say it isn’t good, it is VERY good, its an excellent CD that you should get now from CD Baby, my point it that it is a pretty diverse album, the juxtaposition between something forlorn and unrelenting like Beautiful Boy and something dirty, nasty and hillbilly like Gasoline on the one hand makes the album so great but on the other doesn’t give you a complete sense of the band.



Beautiful Boy - The Evangenitals



Gasoline - The Evangenitals

The thread that does hold them altogether are the voices of Lisa Dee and Juli Crockett, Crockett being a former boxer that could quite literally kick your ass. So even if you don’t get the musical differences, in effect alt-country, you get the glue the voices create. Oddly the worst song on this album is not one of theirs and when I say worst, it’s a fault picking worst.



Hey Yah - The Evangenitals

Shortly after I bought this album they released Everlovin’ the follow up and a beautiful follow at that, still sticking with the roots that they had started to sprout on the debut but more accomplished, more realistic and just better.



Sun is Shining - The Evangenitals

Better than its predecessor and better than anything else for my money than anything that turned up in 2007. Plaintive is a way of describing the songs, you wonder what the stories are behind each lyric, be it Mahi Mahi or Fuck em all. The clues are probably there in the lyrics, who knows?



Fuck em all - The Evangenitals

So as The Evangenitals head into the future the past two years has seen the band line up change, Evangina, the Lisa and Juli side project put some more material out, go on a one second film tour that saw them try and get on Oprah under the name The Love Punks, Juli take up the role of June Carter Cash in a Johnny Cash tribute band called Cash’d out and hopefully, and this is the more important element, work on the third album. Time will tell on that last one.



Tall Lover Man - Juli Crockett


www.evangenitals.com
www.myspace.com/evangenitals
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5456766961
www.cashdout.com