EUREKA SHOW: Gary Reynolds & The Brides of Obscurity in Eureka, May 5th at Brogi's Boiler Room

Seattle, Washington-based Gary Reynolds and the Brides of Obscurity, fronted by studio owner, engineer, and producer Gary Reynolds (vocals, guitar, piano), and including members Don Durham (guitar, vocals), Justin Friesen (bass, piano, vocals), Perry Morgan (drums), and Jeremy Manley (organ, vocals), deliver slightly psychedelic indie-rock with a heavy pop leaning on their sophomore full-length, "Santiago¹s Vest", recorded at Reynolds¹ Seattle studio, Electrokitty Studio.

Gary Reynolds and the Brides of Obscurity will celebrate the release of "Santiago's Vest" March 8th at Sunset Tavern. Show is $7.00 and doors at 8pm, show starts at 9pm. Also on the bill are Curtains for You and Dept. of Energy. "Santiago¹s Vest is a powerful collection of space-pop done by rockers, a group of men who know their way around psychedelic and pop history, but sometimes just want to have fun and play a catchy power-pop tune.

"The songs on ŒSantiago¹s Vest¹ were recorded with an entirely different approach [than our previous releases]. We got together and learned the songs in the studio, mainly aiming to keep only the drums and bass. Then we made up parts and added colors. The full-length is more produced, too. I think it¹s safe to say that everyone in the band likes this record best".

For Gary Reynolds and the Brides of Obscurity, they felt this was the best way to approach it. A relatively new band, they used "Santiago¹s Vest" to figure out how to work together in the studio.

Reynolds says one of the things he¹ s most proud of is that, "we figured out how to take a happy little pop song and twist it. We also figured out how to take something that may have leaned more towards a rock sort of thing and pull it into a more twisted approach."

The record was purposely mixed with the bass guitar way up in the balance, using "Abbey Road" as a mix reference. The result is a record that has a lot more bass guitar than most modern recordings. This also means that you can¹t get it as loud as other CDs, which is exactly what Reynolds and the band wanted.

"We¹re avoiding the Œloudness war¹ that¹s currently going on. We didn¹t compress the thing to oblivion either," he says with a smile.

"We¹ve always had a nostalgic feel to our music," Reynolds says without hesitation. "Not on purpose, but that¹s just the way things turn out. On this record it opens up and sound a bit more current without losing its appeal."