Heave Media

Missed Out Music

Sometimes an album gets lost in the shuffle. HEAVE reminds you that good music never goes away.

Ahh, who doesn't love those criminally unknown American power-pop bands? They're not unlike a desperate middle age balding male with a beer gut desperate for a teenage girl to listen to them. These bands have been scraping at the outer stratosphere of our musical tastes since the mid 1970's, all in an attempt to score. Cheap Trick, Big Star and even Matthew Sweet are the well known artists for sure, but just further outside of town lurk the remnants of bands like The Db's, Shoes and this week's band - who modern era "bubble gum fuzz" enthusiasts like to call Tsar.

Tsar formed in L.A. in 1998, and soon won an energetic following. Their songs are anthems for a small generation detached from the Limp Bizkits and diet Limp Bizkits of the time. The self-titled debut on Hollywood Records was released to little fanfare, and Tsar faded quickly into obscurity. Shame really, seldom do we see albums these days with such boyish and reckless energy. The band would release their follow-up, Bands-Girls-Money, in 2005; but by then had morphed into a poor man's Jimmy Eat World. For a brief moment in the early part of the century - Tsar had a little piece of the world on a platter.

Tsar - The Teen Wizards

Posted by Joe Roth on Nov 19, 2007 @ 12:00 am