Album Notes

Even So makes energetic and quirky Indie Rock that melds hard-driving drum lines with the imaginative lyrics of City Paper's "Best Playwright of Baltimore 2006". On their lively sophomore EP, “Homecomings & Departures,” guitars jangle with infectious Indie-Pop tunefulness while percussion thunders with authority and provides a powerful backbone that allows Even So’s songs to attain a cathartic sense of grandeur. The whimsical and literate lyrics weave epic and unconventional stories not often heard in typical pop songs. The EP moves from airport layovers to Alabama prison breaks. Johnny Cash to John Proctor. Delicate storybook romances to reckless non-sequitur political rants. Ira Gamerman’s warm vocals soar with enthusiasm and urgency; lending themselves to the delicate and emotionally direct “A Song for The Stable Mare” just as easily as the raucous rapid-fire word-play of “A Cookout Witch Trials”. Often, Even So’s songs eschew traditional verse-chorus structures in favor of taking the listener on an unexpected journey. This makes “Homecomings & Departures” a surprising and playful listen. The EP was recorded in a mere 2 days by accomplished engineer Frank Marchand (The Decemberists, The Shins, Bob Mould) and mastered by Grammy Award winner Charlie Pilzer at Airshow Mastering. Reviews: http://www.senbaltimore.com/blogs/agt/index.shtml "Baltimore trio Even So just released Homecomings & Departures, their sophomore EP. Featuring smart lyrics and busy percussion, this is a can't miss effort by one of the area's best unsigned bands. The last song on Even So's sophomore EP Homecomings & Departures (self-released), "Joseph Lewis Lucas" takes a note from Johnny Cash ("I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die"), showing that principal lyricist Ira Gamerman is a much less pretentious Colin Meloy, getting the point across without needing a copy of Roget's Thesaurus. Without the showiness of over-processed lyrics, Even So are able to let a harder bent come through in the music. "Interstellar (Airbag, Airbag)" is tinged with post-punk revival, countoffs, and post-hardcore rather than folk or baroque pop. The bass and drums on Homecomings are way more powerful than anything else released by a Baltimore trio who fall outside of the hard rock scene. Drummer Sam Hoffberger takes a page from Danny Carey, playing with a speed and level (Hoffberger did begin his educational career majoring in music) normally reserved for a longer hair, bigger amplifier crowd. This influence gives Even So's EP a tougher sound than other literary bands, and provides Gamerman (also a playwright) with a larger stage to spin his stories on up-tempo high-stakes songs like "A Cookout at the Witch Trials (The Moralist)." Review from CITY PAPER: "Ira Gamerman is drunk on words. Stories pour out of the 25-year-old local playwright and singer/guitarist in indie-rock trio Even So as if he can't keep them inside...The stories Gamerman tells are less fully formed than feverish glimpses of the big picture, like watching a DVD at 32 times normal speed. And his bluntly throaty voice is an ideal imperfection to run through these slivers, an unmannered, yelping earnestness that sells such restlessness as sincere even when it sounds like John Ashbery madlibs-viz... It makes for fine indie-rock spiked with playful jitters-think Ted Leo/Pharmacists...exploding into something almost as barn-levitating as Califone...Best here is "Joseph Lewis Lucas," where Even So contrasts Gamerman's wry run-on sentences with endless summer power-pop."