photos by Jim Bennett
The first track on First Communion Afterparty‘s 2008 release Sorry For All the Mondays and To Those Who Can’t Sing is named after a psychedelic first synthesized in 1974.
Given that bit of information, you sort of have an idea of what you’re getting into when you put on the record. Harkening back to the progressive rock sounds of the late seventies and early eighties, First Communion Afterparty’s music is the sum of equal parts tremelo, distortion, reverb, and boy/girl vocals that force you to go back and listen to all those old Jefferson Airplane LPs that your parents never listen to anymore.
Some might write them off as riding on the coattails of throwback bands like The Black Angels but something about their music makes you realize that they’re digging deeper into the past with more than a superficial glance at the bands that came from that time. First Communion Afterparty takes the prog and psych rock sounds of yesteryear and recreates them enough that you don’t feel like you’re listening to well-worn territory.
