The Poison Arrows

After two CDEP’s, Chicago’s The Poison Arrows return with their long-awaited debut album First Class, and Forever. Guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Justin Sinkovich (ex Atombombpocketknife) first released a solo EP entitled Trailer Park as The Poison Arrows in 2004 on File Thirteen.

He, drummer Adam Reach, and bassist Patrick Morris (ex Don Caballero) then began playing together. While completing the overdubbing, editing, and mixing of their first EP Straight Into The Drift in their studio The Plaza, The Poison Arrows began to write songs together as a band. After a year had passed, far more than an album’s worth of music materialized. The Poison Arrows then went into Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studio A with staff engineer and long- time friend Greg Norman to record the basic tracks for over a dozen songs.

After completing the basic tracks at Electrical, all of the overdubs were recorded at The Plaza. As the band continued to finish mixes for First Class, and Forever, the second EP Casual Wave was completed from the same sessions.The release of Casual Wave in August of 2008 showed a substantial evolution of The Poison Arrows into a band. The sounds from Electrical Audio are embraced instead of drastically manipulated like the previous EP, while overdubs follow structures that
were previously decided upon by live arrangements.

First Class, and Forever takes these Electrical sessions far further with more complex songwriting and instrumentation. Patrick Morris’s bass playing anchors the songs’ melodies with complex compositions and an unusually extensive array of bass effects. Drummer Adam Reach provides thunderous drumming captured in classic Albini form. Sinkovich instrumentally relies on a maze of guitar lines and a variety of synthesizers sounds, while his vocals glue together each meandering soundtrack with a stark delivery of heady prose. Brian Case from The Ponys, 90 Day Men, and Disappears contributes vocals with Sinkovich on two of the album’s tracks “Total Beverage” and “Twenty Percent Brighter.” Eric Chaleff from Sterling, Follows, and Bloodiest adds striking guitar lines on “Twenty Percent Brighter” as well. The combination of this wide variety of elements has created a complex and intense post-progressive neo-surrealist ten-track album.

The Poison Arrows have toured in the Midwest and East Coast with the likes of Battles, Holy Fuck, Boris, Bellini, Lords, Department of Eagles, Enon, Thalia Zedek, All the Saints, Indian, Born Ruffians, Cadence Weapon, Dianogah, Shipping News,School of Language, and many more. They will be touring extensively for the release of First Class, and Forever.The band has also been featured in a number of publications including Blender, XLR8R, Skyscraper, Maxim, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago,Rhapsody.com, Rcrdlbl.com, Ghetto Blaster, Prefix, Livedaily.com, Popmatters.com, and Emusic.com

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