VIENNA, Va., February, 3, 2012—On the surface, the Front Bottoms look and seem like dozens of other indie rock bands, all of whom sport an acoustic guitar front and center. It was important for Front Bottoms to set themselves apart from the normal malaise of indie rock.
The indie rock circuit is littered with acoustic guitar playing troubadours who sing about the minutia of their relationships and daily life. It all gets to be repetitive because there’s not much of a difference to separate them. Brian Sella, the front man for the Front Bottoms, appears to fit this description, but there are enough quirks to the Front Bottoms sound to avoid this fate.
The New Jersey duo plays a specific brand of irreverent acoustic rock, which seems to have become a genre itself over the years. It feels hard to tread any new ground here, as there’s only so much a band can do in this set up to be different. Still the band goes out of its way to remain ever so off kilter, which helps keep them from sounding redundant.
Of course, the Front Bottoms don’t really focus on being different than the plethora of other acoustic rock acts out there but instead concentrate on their strengths.
The core of the Front Bottoms is front man Sella. If anything makes the Front Bottoms unique, it is Sella’s lyrical content and vocal delivery. The content, in particular, is an odd narrative mix delivered by Sella with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. Nothing about the stories he weaves is ever too serious, and he tosses in a good bit self deprecating wit for good measure.
Bands of similar ilk to the Front Bottoms tend to side more on the sappy and melodramatic. Their feelings are important and they want to get the emotion across to the audience. Sella doesn’t appear to agree with this approach as nothing in the Front Bottoms set list is taken seriously. The emotions are there, but instead adopting a “woe is me” mentality about these various situations, Sella treats them with a shrug and joke.
Most songs in their set on closer inspection are legitimately funny, adding to the impact they have on the audience. What helps add to this is Sella’s delivery. Sella’s vocal style can best be described, not really as singing, but more like ranting. It almost takes on the aspects of stream of conscious singing rather than something the band prepared or even necessarily rehearsed.
Everything about the show seems like an impromptu event, like Sella and drummer Matthew Uychich showed up in the crowd and decided to play a set. There’s a sense of urgency in their songs that tend to be absent from most acoustic rock bands. It’s interesting to see Sella on stage, do sort of a mock nervousness that surrounds all of the songs and gives his voice a little quiver, like he’s not entirely sure he’s going over with the audience.
Extending the quirkiness of the band is the multiple little touches they put into their songs. Nothing is very dominant, but there are hints of horns and keys in almost every song. This was all done by Uychich, but it did lead to a humorous anecdote from Sella about the third member of the band had to forgo touring to be in a community theater production.
It’s easy to say the Front Bottoms are trying a bit too hard to be quirky or funny, in an attempt to please the crowd. That attitude is what makes them so endearing though and creates a difference within the community they inhabit.
Stephen Bradley is an avid music listener. Read more of his work in Riffs at the Washington Times Communities.
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