Shake Shake (self-released, 2007)
By: Ben Salvo
Rating: 5/11

Bugs In The Dark are channeling the early days of indie rock in their first EP, Shake Shake.  Remember those days?  It was back when the only person listening to indie was your best friend’s estranged older brother who played a lot of Warhammer and subsisted on a strict diet of Corn Nuts and Dr. Pepper.  The early nineties time capsule that is Shake Shake provides a little grunge relief for this digitally enhanced world we find ourselves in today, but, in the end, it stands more wholly as a reminder that we have traded our misplaced angst and open flannel shirts for something better.

These Brooklyn rockers are well tuned to their musical strengths.  The buzzing guitars create a net of distorted rhythm on top of nice, hard-hitting drums.  Problems occur when their strengths bend against their obvious weaknesses.  Karen Rockower’s vocals are perfect for every song, gently stinging each lyric with the appeal of the Pixies and the harshness of Crystal Castles, but Zach Glass’s run-of-the-mill, filter-laden, unsure in Seattle style droning vocals are an unfortunate addition to all but one track, “Silence Is A Treason.”

Another over-used resource on this EP is random amp feedback.  The squeals and squawks of angry equipment still have their place in rock-and-roll, but this album gets too much mileage from them.  Tracks “I Change” – featuring Rockower alone on vocals – a and the aforementioned “Silence Is A Treason” are the best ones to catch from this release.
 
Look for their sound to evolve in the next year or two, as long as they can tune their ears to hear when a song is too heavily layered or repetitive.  Bugs In The Dark could benefit greatly from simplicity, despite that fact that they are pretty skeletal already (two guitars and a drum set, with no digital mixing that this reviewer can hear).  Shake Shake is their earliest EP.  To see the progress they’ve already made, check out the review on their newest EP, Grand Avenue.

Grand Avenue (self-released, 2008)
By: Faetra Petillo
Rating: 8/11

Bugs In the Dark's latest release Grand Avenue is proof that the post-punk hard rock sector of the indie scene is still alive and kicking and has not been completely buried by the nu-vo electronica meets folk wave. Depending on how you feel about cold, hard, screaming vocals, killer dissonant guitars coming from every direction and drumming so hard and fast it could be heard from the grave, this could be a good or a bad thing. Either way, it’s music to be reckoned with and I, for one, am happy to still see glimpses of the rock I grew up on, the yelping girls on guitars like Karen O that got me through some hard times in high school and college.

And so I will start with making the obvious comparison: Karen Rockower sounds exactly like Karen O. Eerily so. Meaning, her vocals are calculated yet lacking in control. Emotive but technical. When you are a punk singer, it's an important balance to maintain lest your singing just starts to come off as unpleasant noise. She uses her voice as an instrument that compliments her band without being overpowered by them. Keeping with the notion of controlled chaos, Zach Glass and Zeph Courtney (guitarist and drummer) know how to let the song carry itself away without breaking the consistency and rhythm. Each song is a roller coaster and there's a lot of highs and lows, fasts and slows that need to be executed with precision without making the music sound like it's not free. And they do it beautifully, resulting in great pieces of symphonic rock, music you want to be banging your head along to in the front row but at the same time doesn't turn you aggressive and angry.

The album itself is well crafted. For the most part it is a punk album and most of the tracks, while diverse, fit into the mold. Fast and furious with a little build up here and there. What I like are tracks like "Ave M,” a song that switches the rhythm and tone around, and "Miles of Stone," a rock ballad that is as beautiful as it is painful.  When Zach lends his vocals he compliments Karen well whether it means singing along with her or providing the low to her high.

Here's to hoping the band doesn't just come off as a carbon copy of what already came. They certainly do what they do well, and their energy and talent is unmistakably through the roof. But have we moved on from this kind of music? In a scene that values innovation and is constantly changing, is a band like this even capable of being next year’s breakthrough sound? Who knows... but either way, it's good listening and if their live performances are half as energetic as Grand Avenue, watching them is bound to be a wild time.