When you're receiving several album submissions by bands on a daily basis, probability dictates the odds of any of it being good, let alone great. So when that one-in-a-hundred submission comes in the mailbox that is in fact good, it's something to get excited about. It's a much needed reaffirmation that accepting and actually listening to submissions is a worthwhile practice. But when that one-in-a-thousand submission comes across your path - the one that is not only great, but something you would love to release and actively campaign to release - that's a special moment. It's a connection made with a fan of your record label. A fan that you have just in turn become a fan of their band and will do your best to expose their music to the world, hopefully gaining them a wider fan base of their own.Hi Ho Silver, Away! is the most recent of these bands to cross paths with It's Alive Records in this way. I received a copy of their debut album Chore in the mail this past winter. I first played it in my car during commutes. It didn't leave my car's CD player for a week. It got better with each listen, slowly unfolding itself and revealing its simple yet powerful intricacies.I love a three piece band that can sound so powerful and filled-out. Hi Ho Silver, Away! leave nothing for wanting on Chore. Everything you need is offered up in just the right amount at just the right time. Deeply personal lyrical content delivered by urgent and pained vocals. Guitar fills the comforting airy space in every song with clear and determined intention. Bass rhythms alter between slow and steady and franticly spastic. And when you find yourself slapping your thighs with the rhythm and stomping your feet with the beat, you will know the drums are doing it up good and proper. Perhaps what I am most impressed about with Chore is an incredibly catchy melodic slant that exists despite the lack of any standard verse/chorus song structure or rhyming patterns. Everything flows on its own course and is anything but a chore to be moved by and enjoy.
