Rocket 3's What's the Frequency?

It's been a while since I heard from my longtime Facebook friend, Ramune Nagisetty--March of 2017 to be exact. That's when she sent me a digital copy of a new album of her side project, Avalanche Lily. In that review, I noted that "what Avalanche Lily does, thankfully, is transport me back to that same period of the early 1990s where so many pop genres blended together which resulted in a general broadening of young minds." It's been about four years since her last album from her main band, Rocket 3, which I found to remind me of half a dozen '90s girl-led bands such as Letters to Cleo, Clouds and Elastica. I found Avalanche Lily to possess a cleaner and more stripped-down sound than Rocket 3, although I loved both albums.

Now it's time for a new album from Rocket 3, which sort of takes the best parts of those two albums and combines them into a beautiful pop valentine. What's the Frequency is, as you might imagine, a nod to that famous REM song from Monster, but it's also a loving poke at new bassist Kenneth Foust, who joined the band in 2015. Ramune, of course, sings and plays lead guitar, and she has that fabulously breathy and innocent kind of voice that takes you once again to the '90s when indie bands like Belly were taking over college radio. Ramune's guitar has always taken her bands down a different road--it's clean and relatively lacking in effects, which brings an unusually present and alive sound to the mix. Drummer Andy Anymouse also returns--I've been always been a big fan of his energetic approach on his kit that matches so comfortably with Ramune's style. A fourth member, Gavin Duffy, contributes saxophone and keyboards that broaden the sound.

Like the other two albums, What's the Frequency catches you off guard with its friendly demeanor. I've used words such as "sunny" and "crisp" to describe Ramune's music. It's the kind of upbeat pop/indie rock that instantly puts you into a good mood. What I hear in this album, however, is the inevitable maturing that comes with recording, the playing around with the recipe until it tastes incredible. Ramune's lyrics are more bittersweet here, as they should be with anyone who's sharing the same time-space continuum as the rest of the world, but these nine songs are so consistent with that encouraging demeanor that makes you step back and wonder if we should all start listening to music as content as this.

Another thing I've always liked about Rocket 3 (and Avalanche Lily, of course) is the devotion to great sound quality. Since this is a basic, uncluttered ensemble, the music has always come off as unusually bright and clean--not audiophile bright, which is a bad thing, but crystalline. If you want to check out What's the Frequency right now, and you should, check out their website. If the world is gettin' ya down, this will fix you right up.

Avalanche Lily's Dream Horizon EP

"The band is reminiscent of the Raincoats, Beat Happening, and perhaps the Minutemen, if the Minutemen were fronted by a couple of women."

That description is enough to get my attention, but the real reason I'm talking about the new Portland band Avalanche Lily is that I've known singer-guitarist Ramune Nagisetty since I reviewed Rocket 3's CD Burn back in 2014. (We've been friends on Facebook, so don't think I drop by her house a couple of times per week for a frosty pint of Pliny the Elder.) I actually loved her old band, which reminded me of such fun '90s bands as Letters to Cleo, Veruca Salt, Elastica and especially Clouds. Plus, I always pay attention to her on my newsfeed because Ramune Nagisetty is such a cool name.

Ramune sent me a PM a couple of weeks ago asking me to check out her new band, Avalanche Lily. She didn't want a review or anything--just an honest evaluation. Their new EP, Dream Horizon, is coming out next week so she sent me out a quartet of tracks to download. Compared to Rocket 3, Avalanche Lily sounds much cleaner, purer and sunnier. I'm not hearing Minutemen's jam econo, but I do hear Mazzy Star, kind of dreamy and sexy albeit with more clarity and a penchant for quiet, brief jams. I'm drawn to drummer Andrew Anymouse's persistent brushwork, which is steady and hypnotic, along with the sound of Ramune's clean, undistorted guitar sound. Filling out this trio is Cyndy Chan, who plays bass and sings beautifully measured harmonies with Ramune. It's even more fun to learn about their day jobs--Ramune is an engineer in high-tech, Andrew is a cyber-security specialist and Cyndy raises chickens on her farm and works in a factory.

What Avalanche Lily does, thankfully, is transport me back to that same period of the early 1990s where so many pop genres blended together which resulted in a general broadening of young minds. Best of all, this stripped-down trio is bright and whimsical and easy on the mind. You can get more info on ordering at the Avalanche Lily website.

Rocket 3's Burn on CD

Back in 1993 an Australian band known as Clouds released an album, Thunderhead, and I honestly thought they would become huge in the US as a result. The band sounded so unique because it mated baby-doll vocal harmonies from a pair of frontwomen with a very hard, chunky and kick-ass early '90s grunge. While other groups of that time--Letters to Cleo, Elastica and Veruca Salt, for example--wiggled their way into the American rock scene twenty years ago, I still think Clouds had the best template for that sound, and I still bring out my old CD copy of Thunderhead out and play it every few years. Does anyone else do the same, or even have the slightest idea of what I'm talking about? Clouds were super cool, dammit.

I bring them up because it's rare when a new band reminds me of their almost paradoxical sound. Rocket 3, a winning trio from Portland, does. They may not rock quite as consistently hard as Clouds--their debut album Burn does contain some softer, slower songs that make the overall comparison sort of moot--but when they get rolling on songs such as "Good Enough" and "Jealous Girl," that chasm between a straightforward rock band and lovely, sexy vocals (courtesy of guitarist Ramune) is extremely evocative of the rock scene twenty-plus years ago. Backed up by drummer Drew and bassist Tony, Ramune was reportedly late to the music game and only recently learned how to play. That's not a problem--she knows the basics and her uncluttered rhythm lines are reminiscent of early Talking Heads where each member used to treat their instruments like alien and suspicious devices. With this type of band, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

On their Facebook page the band lists their interests as "playing music, being goofy and laughing so hard it hurts," but that doesn't mean that Rocket 3 is your normal party band from the City of Roses. Upon first listen, I thought the trio's sound was imbued with a bit of the shoegazer spirit, especially considering that Burn ends with a version of My Bloody Valentine's "Only Shallow" that's so reverent that it could only come from true fans, so good that even the most hardcore MBV fans will say, "Oh that's okay, we're not offended by this." This album is lots of fun, but not necessarily in a lighthearted way--it has an almost drone-like momentum hiding within its deepest recesses, and that darkness is worth searching out.

The sound quality of Burn is a little soft and blurry around the edges--it doesn't sound nearly as crispy and tight as Thunderhead--so it probably won't appeal to too many other grumpy middle-aged audiophiles such as me. But I think Rocket 3 is the perfect answer to the question "What kind of music were you listening to twenty years ago?" I, for example, was listening to music like this instead of getting all misty-eyed with my friends watching Clapton play "Tears in Heaven." What's irony for one generation is nostalgia for another. Highly recommended, especially if you listen to it right before you drag out your old Clouds CDs.