How to grow a White Pine: Take Brian Fraser, Chris Palmatier, and Tom Petersen from Kobald. Add Corsciana's bass-thumper Keith. Supply generous woodshedding time, quick-and-dirty tracking sessions, and a healthy aversion to vocals. Wait several seasons for mixes to bloom. Then send to mastering. Voilà: One towering tree of rock.

Clever Arbor Day metaphors aside, White Pine's self-titled CD combines paired guitars set to stun, a tight-tolerance rhythm section, and a restless songwriting muse. The two opening tracks reveal the breadth of territory covered: "Activate Your Emergency Equipment" keeps it simple, effective, and high-energy from start to finish with blazing power chords and a relentless drum-and-bass drive, while "Fabric" navigates treacherous compositional rapids, with ever-changing time signatures and groove-reversing full-stop strategies. The wide range, however, doesn't imply a dilettantish approach—"All Sleepy Demons Are Creatures of the Street" shows that these guys can knit the proverbial rug that ties the room together. "...Sleepy Demons..." employs both piercing axe-work and a narrative that begins with a quiet as profound as the crashing volume of the coda. Who says the forest and the trees can't rest side by side?

Alternative Content

Activate Your Emergency Equipment
(5.08MB .mp3 file)

White Pine: (s/t)
(65MB .zip file)
9 songs, all 320kbps mp3s.