Rockets and Bluelights – A Smashed City with Flames and Music in the Air

2003 • Redder Records

I love finding lost little gems of music; it's one of my favorite things about diving deep into music. I don't know how obscure Rockets and Bluelights actually are, but their EP A Smashed City with Flames and Music in the Air is really satisfying my desire for more of the indie emo style I've recently come to love.

Granted, my enjoyment of this band is definitely a personal thing. They sound very much like a more mumbly-and-instrumental version of Cap'n Jazz, one of my all-time favorites, with a nice mix of heavy punk riffing and jangly clean guitars with hints of post-rock and math rock mixed in. If you know what Cap'n Jazz sounds like, Rockets and Bluelights are basically the same thing (though maybe a bit less heavy and a bit slower). (If you don't know what they sound like, why not?!)

Aside from sometimes being a bit hard to follow, the songwriting is practically perfect—I love just about everything every instrument does and it's put together really well. The bass guitar gets some great lines and even a faux-solo here and there, while the guitars play off each other perfectly and pull out some pretty complex melodies. There is also a bit of math rock influence with the occasional odd beat pattern, polyrhythm, or off-kilter drumline, which is really neat. There's just something about these riffs that gets to me... take the stop-start ending of "Andee"; it's just really good and I don't even know how to say why.

If I had to complain about anything, it would be that the production is a bit sloppy; sometimes instrument timing is off and the vocals are buried so deep that they're almost inaudible. There's nothing too special about the vocals, though, so it's not really a huge issue, but they still weren't given justice.

And of course it's too damn short! Yes, yes, it's an EP, and fifteen minutes is a good EP runtime, but it still begs to be listened to twice in a row because I'm never satisfied when it's over. And that's when you know you have something truly special on your hands.

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