Frontier Index Show & CD Reviews

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Well the shows this weekend were great. Friday night at the Horseshoe they had 300 through the door to rock and twang out all night. Notable audience members were Sloan, 2 Rheostatics (big fans), Cuff the Duke, etc... Good show, not the best, but very good.

The next night in Stratford (their / our hometown) was Awesome. Rented out the Masonic Lodge, filled it with sound, lights, and people, and had a wicked hometown show. Not that anyone here besides SmoothedShredder knows their songs, but highlights were Live For You, If It Don't Work Out, Collide, and a perfect cover of the Byrds' version of You Don't Miss Your Water. Gotta love having 3 vocalists in the band...

And, as some of you might have gathered, I am close friends with these guys, so I've copied and pasted an unbiased review from Chart Magazine. As the reviews for their CD roll in I'll add them to this thread. I'm doing this because I think a lot of people on this board will really like them. (My review of the CD: Very good. See them live! Tour in July!)

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FRONTIER INDEX S/T (Rainbow Quartz/Maplenationwide)

It's a rite of passage for every cowboy-shirted rocker to record at Andy Magoffin's House of Miracles. The closest one of Magoffin's miracles that the Frontier Index sound like are The Parkas, but even there the comparisons are loose. Instead this Toronto quartet fuse some atmospheric guitar work into their twang-y rock 'n' roll. On their debut, they tend to rely too much on the start-quiet-then-build pattern and hazy, harmony-backed breeziness, but when they stir it up with some majestic electric guitar and gorgeous melodies — as on the steamroller of a ballad "If It Don't Work Out," the harmonica soul of "I Ain't Hurtin'" and closer "On & On" — the results are captivating. Brian Wong

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From David Marchese, staff writer at PopMatters.com

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PopMatters (David Marchese)

On the Saturday night, vaguely depressed from the Dears show and tired from the previous evening’s club-hopping, I hopped in my car and headed off to try and see Magneta Lane – a group of hot girls who play catchy pop and are generating major buzz. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I couldn’t get in to see them. Figuring I had done all my investigation for the night, I headed back to the Drake to gather my thoughts. It was there, when I wasn’t busy thinking, that I saw the band that salvaged my night.

Frontier Index is one of the best country-influenced rock bands I’ve ever heard. With their mix of heartfelt twang and epic guitar bliss-kriegs, Frontier Index are what I’m hoping to hear every time I listen to alt-country. Frontier Index is cooler than the Jayhawks, more romantic than the Sadies, and more real than Ryan Adams. Deep in the throes of music fatigue, after having gorged on sound and vision, the beautiful and expansive music of Frontier Index helped remind me of why I give a damn about this whole thing anyway.

[SmoothedShredder]

This album is great... f'n great! Not a bad tune on the thing. Solid, interesting, Alt-contry with some funky delay work to pop it up a bit. Big influences are the Band and Blue Rodeo in the vox.

~W

[Jaimoe]

Here's a recent CD review from Chart Attack:

FRONTIER INDEX S/T (Rainbow Quartz/Maplenationwide)

It's a rite of passage for every cowboy-shirted rocker to record at Andy Magoffin's House of Miracles. The closest one of Magoffin's miracles that the Frontier Index sound like are The Parkas, but even there the comparisons are loose. Instead this Toronto quartet fuse some atmospheric guitar work into their twang-y rock 'n' roll. On their debut, they tend to rely too much on the start-quiet-then-build pattern and hazy, harmony-backed breeziness, but when they stir it up with some majestic electric guitar and gorgeous melodies — as on the steamroller of a ballad "If It Don't Work Out," the harmonica soul of "I Ain't Hurtin'" and closer "On & On" — the results are captivating. Brian Wong

[Turd Ferguson]

Turd: Ok Trebeck, give me I'll Light A Rat for $300.

Alex Trebeck: That's not the category Mr Reynolds, its Illiterate.

Turd: Whatever you say Wiggers but my answer is Jaimoe for either question.