A crew of digital-age composers, the Republic Tigers pass around song files like intraband demos, loading them onto ProTools rigs and sculpting massive creations from the initial song chunks. Starting with the hard elements of rock—guitar, drums, bass line, melody—the Kansas City band stacks on vocal layers, atmospheric keyboards, sampled sounds, chimes, echoes, hums, whirs and whatever else sounds good at the time.
In creating these brilliant, crystalline pop hymns, the Tigers blur the line between old-fashioned songwriting and computerized songmaking. "The Nerve," a song about a robot boy longing for a human girl, found on the band's debut, Keep Color, illustrates the concept perfectly.
Denton's equal parts Joy Division- and Radiohead-inspired Grassfight will play support. Opening the bill is Starhead, a relatively new, slow-paced, shoegaze-y Denton act.
Ska punkers RX Bandits top this bill and, although the band has added some interesting soul and progressive rock elements into its sound, this will certainly be a case of the openers overshadowing the headliner.
